A five-year-old boy has died in Cyprus after being left for eight hours in a locked car by his father, a doctor who rushed to a medical emergency.
The 40-year-old doctor, an orthopedic surgeon who has not been named, was taking his son to nursery in the southern coastal town of Larnaca when he received an emergency call at around 8am on Tuesday.
He drove to a private clinic and left the boy in the car, police said.
It was only when his wife called him more than eight hours later, after she had gone to collect the child from his nursery, that the father realised what he had done.
He found his son unconscious in the back seat of the car, with an empty water bottle beside him. Colleagues from the clinic were unable to revive the boy.
A post mortem carried out on Wednesday indicated that the boy could have died from a heart attack.
The car in which he was found was towed away and impounded by the authorities. Temperatures in Cyprus have reached 117F (30C) this week.
11 comments:
Sadly, children are forgotten and die in cars more often than one would think.
A very well written, informative article on the topic:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/27/AR2009022701549.html?sid=ST2009030602446
The man must be living in an eternal nightmare now. This is a horrific story.
Thanks for linking that article. Awareness about this is probably key to preventing it from happening in the future.
30C is not 117F, just to note.
Sorry, we're not very good at high temperatures here in the UK. ;)
Very sad, but wondering why a 5 year old couldn't get out of the car by himself...the locks are designed to keep people out, not in.
Just wondering
Maybe he fell asleep in the heat, then died in his sleep.
He may have been strapped into a booster seat and unable to reach the seatbelt clip or the lock. Or he may have not realized anything was wrong and fallen asleep in the heat, then died in his sleep.
Maybe he fell asleep in the heat, then died in his sleep.
Maybe he fell asleep in the heat, then died in his sleep.
He may have been strapped into a booster seat and unable to reach the seatbelt clip or the lock. Or he may have not realized anything was wrong and fallen asleep in the heat, then died in his sleep.
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