3-year-old dies inside hot SUV in Anaheim; mom, who was also in the car, is arrested
A 3-year-old girl died after being shut inside a hot car in Anaheim during a prolonged heat wave that has sent temperatures into triple digits. Her mother was also in the car.
The girl’s mother, 41-year-old Sandra Hernandez, was arrested on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter and felony child neglect, the Anaheim Police Department announced in a news release Monday.
The girl’s name was not released by authorities.
Officers responded to the 1300 block of Fashion Lane around 4:30 p.m. on Friday for reports of a medical emergency, the Anaheim Police Department said. A family member called 911 after they found Hernandez, who was unconscious, and her daughter in the vehicle and tried to provide first aid, Anaheim Police Sgt. Matt Sutter said.
It was around 104 degrees outside when officers responded to the call, according to Sutter. Temperatures inside a car on a hot day, even with the windows cracked, can rise 20 to 40 degrees higher than the outside temperature within minutes, according to the National Weather Service.
Officers tried to provide CPR to the girl while the mother was unconscious in the white Ford Expedition. Both were taken to a hospital, but the girl was pronounced dead at the hospital. Hernandez and her daughter were in the SUV for an unknown period of time when a family member found them locked inside, according to police.
Police later found several empty alcohol bottles in the vehicle.
Sheriff’s officials in Arizona are investigating a 4-month-old’s death after her parents took her out on a boat in temperatures as high as 120 degrees.
The girl appears to have died from complications due to a heatstroke, but the official cause of death has yet to be determined, Sutter said. An autopsy is expected to confirm the cause and time of death.
Her family identified her as Ily Elizabeth Ruiz in a GoFundMe campaign created to help the family pay for funeral expenses.
“ILY was such a beautiful and innocent soul with a very loving and bubbly personality,” wrote Nancy Salamanca, a cousin of the girl’s father, in the post.
She says Ily’s father, Juan Ruiz, will need to relocate from Texas to California to care for his 5-year-old son, whom he had with Hernandez and who was in Hernandez’s custody.
In an emotional TikTok video, Ruiz said that his son was staying with a relative in the meantime, but he’s going to try to fight for custody.
Ruiz said he was a “wreck” and asked for help “in any shape, color, f— form.”
Detectives interviewed Hernandez at the hospital and arrested her after she was medically cleared, authorities announced. She was booked into the Anaheim Police Department Detention Facility.
Anyone with information about the case can call the Police Department at (714) 765-1900 or the Orange County Crime Stoppers at (855) TIP-OCCS.
If the official autopsy results confirm the child died in the vehicle, it would mark the 30th child death inside a hot vehicle nationwide this year, according to the nonprofit Kids and Car Safety.
Nearly 70 children have died in hot cars in California since 1990, and Friday’s death would be the third this year, the nonprofit said. The majority of children who die in hot vehicles are ages 5 and younger, Kids and Car Safety spokesperson Amber Rollins said.
Last year, 29 children died of heatstroke in vehicles, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported. A child’s body temperature rises three to five times faster than an adult’s and can turn fatal when it reaches 104 degrees, according to the federal agency.
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