8-year-old girl dies after being left in car during high heat
An 8-year-old child passed away after being left in a hot car while her mother was at work.
According to a report by ABC News, Ashlee Stallings, the victim's mother from North Carolina, has been arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter after the incident.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said they responded to reports of a kid in critical condition inside a car in the evening of June 26. She was pronounced dead the following morning.
In a press release, authorities noted that Stallings left her daughter "in hot weather conditions," which led to a health emergency.
Citing the arrest warrant affidavit, the media outlet reported that Stallings explained she left her child in her car because she had some work to do. She noted that she made sure the air conditioner was on, though she "believed the victim turned the car off because she was cold."
When she came back after more than an hour, she found her daughter unresponsive at the backseat of the car, "taking shallow breaths and foaming at the mouth." She recalled breaking the window open by using a hammer and trying to rush her child to a nearby hospital but later stopping at a store for assistance.
According to the affidavit, Stallings "admitted she knew" that the temperature was over 90 degress outside and that she "should not have left the victim inside the car alone."
The hospital said the child suffered brain herniation, which Healthline refers to as a condition that "occurs when brain tissue, blood, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) shift from their normal position inside the skull." Per authorities, the victim's medical emergency was caused by hyperthermia, or an "abnormally high body temperature," according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Stallings was arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter and child abuse by willful act causing serious injury later that week.
She is now at the Mecklenburg County Detention Center on a $250,000 (P14.7 million) bond, according to ABC News. She's set to appear in court on July 16.
The investigation on the case is still ongoing.