Baby girl dies after boating in Lake Havasu on 120-degree day; investigation launched
The Sheriff’s Office in Mohave County, Ariz., is investigating the death of a baby girl earlier this month after her parents took her boating in 120-degree heat.
The 4-month-old fell unconscious shortly after 5 p.m. July 5 while on a boat on Lake Havasu — a reservoir straddling the state line between Mohave County and California’s San Bernardino County, the department said in a statement.
The infant was taken to Havasu Regional Medical Center in Lake Havasu City to be treated for heat-related illness, and was pronounced dead after she was transferred to Phoenix Children’s Hospital, the department said.
Here is a list of temperature records broken during this long-duration, extreme heat wave broiling California and the West.
Mohave sheriff’s officials did not name the parents or the child, but a spokesperson for the city of Riverside confirmed to The Times that the father was Matthew Wroblewski, a detective with the Riverside Police Department. A GoFundMe account identified the mother as Alyssa Wroblewski and the girl as Tanna Rae.
Alyssa Wroblewski did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Temperatures across the West set several records this weekend, but the long-duration heat wave is forecast to continue across California for much of the week.
The infant’s death occurred amid an excessive heat warning in Mohave County. Temperatures around Lake Havasu regularly soar well into the triple digits in the summer, and reached 120 degrees on July 5, according to National Weather Service data.
Last year, more than 4,426 people went to emergency rooms in the state for heat-related illnesses, including 215 people in Mohave County, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
“One of our employees and his family suffered the unimaginable loss of their daughter recently,” the Riverside Police Department said in a statement late Thursday, “and all of us at the Police Department mourn with them.”
The recent heat wave also claimed the life of a 2-year-old girl in Marana, Ariz., southeast of Phoenix, after her father left her sleeping in a car with the air conditioning on while he ran inside the house, according to the Marana Police Department. The vehicle, police said, stopped running at some point.
The GoFundMe post for the Wroblewskis said they were enjoying a day on the lake when Tanna lost consciousness. Her parents tried to resuscitate her before a Lake Havasu City Fire Department crew arrived.
“Our precious baby girl gave us her last smiles and we gave her our last kisses,” the post read. “We will never understand why you had to leave so soon, you were just too perfect.”
Meteorologists say a cooldown should start Friday and last at least through the weekend, ‘but when you start out more than 10 degrees above normal, it will still feel quite warm.’
The GoFundMe account included photos of the family, including one of baby Tanna smiling widely and dressed in a monster-truck onesie, a bow on her head.
Shortly after the child’s death, Alyssa Wroblewski posted a tribute to her on Facebook, according to the “Today” show.
“These are the last photos I took of you before you left us,” Wroblewski wrote in the July 8 post. “Your smile radiated joy. ... I never thought there would be a day in my life without you.”
Wroblewski said the family was struggling to make sense of what happened that day.
The July 8 post has since been made private or taken down. Some Facebook users had criticized Wroblewski and her husband for taking the infant boating amid such high temperatures, according to KSLA News 12.
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