A 2-year-old girl died in Temple after she was left for at least an hour in a vehicle, authorities said Sunday.
The girl, whose name has not been released, had been reported missing when she was found inside a vehicle at the 1600 block of East Barton Avenue in Temple, about 70 miles north of Austin.
Temple Fire and Rescue provided CPR at the scene, then took the child to Baylor Scott and White Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Police say the girl had been inside the vehicle for at least an hour prior to their arrival. Investigators are looking into the circumstances.
Jan Null, a research meteorologist at San Jose State University who tracks heatstroke deaths of children in vehicles, said that if the death in Temple is confirmed as heat-related, it's the fourth such death in Texas this year.
Last year there were a total of 24 juvenile vehicular hyperthermia deaths nationwide, with five in Texas, according to information from Null. Since 1998 at least 679 infants and children have died in hot vehicles in the United States and 104 have been in Texas.
“With an outside air temperature in the mid-90s, the inside air temperature of the car could have been in excess of 145 degrees,” Null wrote in an email. “Objects or a person inside the car in direct sunlight would have been significantly hotter.”
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