3-year-old boy dies after left in hot car on Miles College campus
Fairfield AL Sept 27 2017
A child died Monday afternoon after being left in a vehicle on the Miles College campus.
The Jefferson County Coroner’s Office on Tuesday identified the boy as Dra Kadyn Hudson. He lived in the Bessemer area.
Fairfield Police Chief Nick Dyer said the 3-year-old boy was left in the car while the grandmother was at work at the college.
He was discovered unresponsive at 4:09 p.m. and rushed to Children’s of Alabama, where he was pronounced dead at 5:25 p.m. He said the boy is believed to have been in the car since his grandmother arrived for work in the morning just after 8 a.m.
Both the boy’s grandmother and his father are employed at the college. The grandmother works in software support, and the father is an assistant football coach. Efforts to reach the boy’s father for comment weren’t immediately successful.
“Miles College is praying for the family during this difficult time,” said Miles spokeswoman Alicia Johnson Williams. “Our hearts, prayers and support are extended to our team member and the entire family.”
Dyer said they will present the case to the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office in the morning to determine whether charges will be filed. “It’s a tragedy and my thoughts and prayers are with the family,” the chief said.
Monday’s temperate was about 87 degrees, and experts say the inside air temperature of the car could have been in excess of 130 degrees. Objects or a person inside the car in direct sunlight could have been hotter, said Jan Null, a meteorologist at San Jose State University who specializes in hot car deaths.
So far this year, 39 children have died across the United States, including four in Alabama. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, between 1998 and 2016, 739 children died nationwide due to vehicular heatstroke. In 376 of those deaths, or 54 percent, an investigation concluded that the child was simply forgotten by its caregiver. In only 120 of those incidents, or 17 percent, was there sufficient evidence to show the act was deliberate.
In 2016, there were a total of 39 juvenile vehicular hyperthermia deaths nationwide, including two in Alabama.
Earlier this year, Christian Evan Sanders died from hyperthermia – an elevated body temperature due to failed thermoregulation that occurs when a body produces or absorbs more heat than it dissipates. Chief Deputy Coroner Bill Yates said Christian was last known to be alive at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, April 7. He was found unresponsive at 4:37 p.m. and pronounced dead at Children’s of Alabama at 5:06 p.m.
The Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office in July said a three-month probe into the April 7 incident yielded no sign of criminal wrongdoing. “All evidence indicates that this was a tragic accident,” District Attorney Pro Tem Danny Carr said in a prepared statement.
The Jefferson County Coroner’s Office said Christian Evan Sanders died from hyperthermia – an elevated body temperature due to failed thermoregulation that occurs when a body produces or absorbs more heat than it dissipates.
In the second Alabama case, Memory Ryan Vieyra is charged with murder and aggravated child abuse in the March 29 death of 14-month-old Giuliana Susan Grace Ramirez.
The incident happened at 2713 Leonard Chapel Road in Carbon Hill. The criminal complaint for murder against Vieyra states that she engaged in conduct which manifested extreme indifference to human life and created a grave risk of death to the little girl. Vieyra did so by “violently shaking Giuliana and/or leaving (her) in a vehicle that reached extreme internal temperatures for an extended period of time.”
AL.com
