New Mexico toddler dies in hot car,…
A two-year-old New Mexico toddler died in a hot car on Tuesday, and the child’s babysitter was arrested on a felony charge in connection with that death.
The Hobbs Police Department indicated it received a 911 call around 1:30 p.m. from a woman who said she had accidentally left a child in her car for several hours.
Fire and rescue crews responded and declared the child dead at the scene.
Tammy Brooks, 41, was being held in the Hobbs City Jail pending arraignment on a first-degree felony charge of abandonment or abuse of a child that resulted in death.
Brooks told police she was babysitting the child. Investigators said Brooks was supposed to have dropped off the child at daycare but drove to work instead. The two-year-old was left unattended in a car seat for hours until Brooks realized the child was still in the car after running an errand.
The temperature reached a high of 91 degrees in Hobbs on Tuesday.
This was the first hot car death in New Mexico in 2019, but it was the 42nd death to happen in the U.S., according to KidsandCars.org, a national non-profit advocacy group that works to educate people about the dangers of leaving kids and pets in hot vehicles.
(The Associated Press and ABC News contributed to this report.)
KVIA 2019
