Authorities reported that a 5-year-old child who was first found unconscious while inside a car in Virginia has died.
The child was left inside the vehicle on Tuesday afternoon while temperatures reached the 90s.
The incident was labeled by the police as a “tragic accident”, as reported by FOX 5 in Washington, D.C.
After being brought home along with some family members, the child might have been forgotten inside for “several hours”. Investigators are looking into the reason why the child was left.
According to a report by FOX 5, CPR was performed to save the child, who was declared dead at a hospital.
“Our heart breaks for this family,” Fairfax Police Lieutenant John Lieb said, as reported by WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C.
An advocacy group Kidsandcars.org said that this year alone, 11 children nationwide have already lost their lives while inside hot cars.
Last month, a 3-year-old child also died while inside a hot car. Her California mother was allegedly taking care of marijuana plants when the incident happened, according to the police.
Visalia Police said in a press release that the child, Jessica Campos, was inside a parked vehicle for three hours before she was found.
Police said the temperature inside the vehicle “was determined to be at least 100 degrees at the time of the incident,” which restricted the child from breathing, FOX News reported.
In a report by WRC-TV in Washington, D.C., the massive infrastructure bill works $1.2 trillion, which passed the Senate on Tuesday, says that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration must mandate “that new cars come equipped with technology to alert the driver to check the back seat when the car is turned off.”
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., in a statement, said that the technology “would allow states to use federal funding to educate the public on the dangers of leaving a child unattended in the backseat of a car, and requires the Department of Transportation to study options for retrofitting existing vehicles to address the problem,” WRC said, as reported by FOX News.