Two-year-old child dies in hot car while mother takes nap

Police first received a call from frantic mother who could not find child after waking up

(NBC7 screenshot)

A child who was found dead in a hot car by her mother who had just woken up from a nap has been identified by her father as 2-year-old Scarlett Grace Harris.

Scarlett was found dead in the car, which was parked in the driveway of her family’s home in San Diego, California, on Monday by her mother, who had called for emergency assistance when she could not find the toddler.

After the initial call, the mother then called back and notified that she had found her daughter in the family car, unresponsive.

Paramedics rushed to the site to try and revive the toddler, but Scarlett was pronounced dead at the scene.

The neighbourhood where Scarlett lived with her parents is reportedly filled with personnel from military bases near the city, and her father was reportedly serving in the armed services.

“This is tough,” one neighbour told an NBC affiliate in San Diego. “It hits home. It could happen to any of us. I’m a mother, we go through a lot being military spouses, you know, with our significant others, just in life in general, and this is just so unfortunate.”

Scarlett’s death comes just weeks after two one-year-old twins were found dead in a hot car in New York City, after their father had forgotten the children in the vehicle as he went to work.

Police did not immediately say whether Scarlett had been left in the vehicle, or had got stuck inside.

The advocacy group Kids and Cars says that there is a hot car death in the United States, on average, every nine days — with around 38 deaths occurring each year.

Last year, the rate was the highest it had been since the group began keeping a tally of the deaths, with 53 children dying of heatstroke after being trapped in hot cars.