A Florida babysitter is facing manslaughter charges after a 10-month-old infant died in a sweltering car on Wednesday, July 19.
According to the Baker County Sheriff’s Office, 48-year-old Rhonda Jewell picked up the baby from the mother’s home at 8 am for babysitting. The tragic discovery of the baby still inside the vehicle was made at 1 pm.
Deputies responded to a house on Estate Street in Macclenny, Florida and found the baby inside the garage lying on the seat of a golf cart and began performing CPR. Medics arrived at the scene and took the child to a local hospital where she was later pronounced dead. The child’s skin was very hot, according to the officers.
Police say Jewell came to the home to babysit the baby along with three other children to be picked up at another location. The police report says that the babysitter picked up the baby at 8 a.m. and drove to the other house. The report states she forgot the baby was in the car while she was with the other children.
As reported by the National Weather Service, temperatures in the area had reached a scorching 97 degrees just before 1 pm on that day. The sheriff’s incident report revealed that the temperature inside the car at the time of discovery was an astonishing 133 degrees, underlining the extreme danger to which the child had been exposed.
The incident took place in the Baker County area, west of Jacksonville, where no extreme heat advisories or warnings were in effect at the time. However, it coincided with a broader heat wave affecting the South and Southwest regions of the country, putting millions of people at risk.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns that even on an 80-degree day, the temperature inside a car can rise to 123 degrees in just an hour. Tragically, this circumstance leads to nearly 40 children’s deaths each year due to heat stroke after being left in or trapped in vehicles, as reported by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
The babysitter is now facing serious legal repercussions for this incident, which has shocked the community and left a family grieving the loss of their young child.
