Child hot car death pushes parents who lost daughter to sound alarm about 'preventable tragedy'
On the Tuesday after Labor Day weekend 2019, Scott Jones did his usual morning chore of dropping his eldest kids off at school and returning to his Arizona home office to knuckle down to work.
Around four hours later, his wife, Angela, called him to ask how 3-year-old Charlotte, their youngest child, was doing as they had decided to keep her out of pre-school that week to stay home with her father.
But Scott had completely forgotten that he had taken Charlotte along for the ride in his truck to drop her sisters off at school, and when he returned home he was in autopilot mode, doing what he did every day by hopping out of his truck and starting work.
"And then all of a sudden I could just hear a panic in his voice," Angela Jones told Fox News Digital. "I initially thought she had gotten into the pool or something like that, and then he was like, ‘Oh, my God, I don't think I ever got her out of the car.’ Then it hit him what has happening and he ran out into the driveway."
Charlotte, or "Charly" as the family affectionately called her, had been left alone in the vehicle as the Arizona mercury hit 98 degrees that day, Angela recalled.
Scott called 911, but it was too late, with Charly succumbing to the blistering heat.
The family is not alone.
Every year, dozens of American children die from being left inside hot vehicles, with the majority of cases stemming from parents forgetting they had left them there in the first place. Other causes include miscommunication between parents or guardians or forgetting to drop the child off at daycare.
Janette Fennell, the founder of Kids and Car Safety, a group that compiles data on child hot car deaths and advocates for better car safety standards, says about 55% of child hot car deaths can be attributed to kids being unknowingly left in vehicles. The group has been crunching the numbers on these deaths since 1990.
"In most cases, these are good parents," Fennell said. "In general, 90% of the incidents are good parents and they certainly never even harm a hair on their [child’s] head."
Fennell says that while child front car seat deaths have plummeted due to seats being banned in the front passenger seats, child vehicular heatstroke deaths have grown and have remained high. The group has recorded at least 1,083 hot car deaths from 1990 through 2023, with 29 deaths last year and 36 deaths in 2022. The summer months are the most prevalent.
Fennell says some states require car safety seats to be rear-facing, which makes it harder for drivers to see the child in the back. She said there are a variety of factors that could lead to such a tragedy.
"The biggest mistake anyone can ever make is to think that it can't happen to them or someone in their family because we work very closely with these families, and many of them will admit to us that's what they thought before it happened to them," Fennell said.
"And it's not about good or bad parenting, it's kind of the Swiss cheese model where all kinds of holes line up perfectly at the wrong time."
Angela says Charly was the beating heart of their young family and is terribly missed by them.
"She was our sassy one, the funny one, always making funny faces, our little ham," Jones said. "She was just the light in our family, and we are constantly talking about her. We try to honor her memory."
Angela said the tragedy that befell their family could easily happen to other families, and she is making it her mission to inform parents about the dangers and wants to help them come up with some preventive measures to help stop it from happening.
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"I made it my mission, and it's really helped me get through everything, to spread awareness and share our story, because I never thought that this would happen to us."
"And I've learned through the years and speaking to other families that people have a lot of judgment, and they think, ‘Oh my gosh, how could a parent forget their child. How does that happen? They must be a bad parent, or they must be on drugs or neglectful things.’"
"And that's obviously not the case. We did everything we could to protect our children, and we just never realized that this was a danger until it happened to us," Jones said.
"So, sharing my story, we are normal, loving parents. I just want it to resonate with other people so they can have a backup plan or do things, because this is a preventable tragedy and it can be stopped through your different measures."
Jones said she has been working with Kids and Car Safety to sound the alarm on some of the pitfalls people can make and to advocate for new technology in cars.
The group has been pushing for the federal government to regulate sensors to be put in vehicles to alert drivers if someone is still inside. Even if the legislation is passed, they admit it would take years before all cars could be outfitted with such sensors.
Other solutions include putting something in the car seat with the child that you will need later, like your wallet or purse, Jones said.
"If you're going to be outside of your normal routine, I recommend that the parent call the caregiver that's driving that child to make sure that they get to their destination or have an agreement with your day care that if a child doesn't show up like they're supposed to, that they call the parent and ask if everything's OK," Jones said.
Jones also said that car seats should be placed on the opposite side of the driver's side so when they look back they can see the child. She said Charly was seated directly behind her father the day she died.
"People forget things all the time," Jones said. "They forget to turn the oven off, or they forget to do all sorts of things, your mind just goes on autopilot. And people are so busy in this day and age, people are running from place to place. And sometimes you're out of routine because kids are in school, so it just happens, unfortunately."
"And it's totally preventable."