9-month-old dies in hot car after dad goes to work

ROCKLEDGE, Fla. — The father of a 9-month-old girl who died after being left in a hot pickup truck forgot to drop his child off at her sitter before going to his job, he told police.

Steven Lillie of Cocoa, Fla., stepped outside of the strip mall office where he worked about 4:45 p.m. ET Monday and screamed in horror when he found his daughter's lifeless body still strapped in the truck where she had been placed earlier in the day.

"We got a call from the co-workers saying that the child was in the back seat. We think the child may have been there for several hours," said Lt. Donna Seyferth, spokeswoman for the Rockledge Police Department. "Our officers tried to resuscitate the child, and rescuers tried every lifesaving measure they could, but it was not successful. It's beyond tragic."

The baby was pronounced dead a short time after paramedics arrived. An autopsy Tuesday will determine the exact cause of death.

Lillie was distraught but managed to tell officers that he had had an unspecified disruption in his routine, according to the police report. Detectives also are reviewing the case to determine whether criminal negligence was involved; no charges have been filed.

"It's just too soon. When you're investigating an incident like this, you're also investigating people that have lost their child." Seyferth said, adding that police are also trying to give the family time to grieve.

Right before Lillie, who lives about 10 miles from work, went outside, a family member had called to ask about the child because she was supposed to have been dropped off about four hours before, Seyferth said.

"Dad was distraught. That's probably the best word I could use," she said. "He was crying; he was distraught. It was probably for him and his family the worst day of their lives."

The Florida Department of Children and Families, the state agency that handles child protective cases, also is reviewing the case to see if the family's other children may need additional care. The agency had no prior reports of abuse or neglect of the infant, whose name has not been released, said Kristi Gray, the department's spokeswoman.

The high temperature Monday was 85 degrees, about 4 degrees below normal, according to the National Weather Service in Melbourne, Fla. But inside a vehicle, temperatures can quickly climb up to 120 degrees within an hour, causing children and animals left inside to suffer heatstroke.

Experts also say that a child's body warms more quickly than adults.

"It's sad," said Marquavis Greggs, 23, of Rockledge as he came to pick up his daughter from a day-care center in the same shopping plaza. "I just came to pick up my own daughter and saw all the tape on the truck."

A day-care worker was strapping his child into her car seat as he spoke.

"Things will happen and people's routines get disrupted," Seyferth said. "Sadly, this isn't the first case and we do see these, particularly during the summer months. We just recommend to parents to do that sweep, look in the back of your car."

The National Safety Council recommends that parents leave something in the back seat of their vehicle that they need for work or their errands, such as a briefcase, purse or cellphone, to serve as a reminder of the child in the car seat.

In 2013, 44 children across the USA died as a result of vehicle-related heat deaths, according to KidsandCars.org, a nonprofit child safety organization that monitors news sites and police reports involving children and vehicle accidents. Statistics also show that 11 other children in the U.S. died so far this year after being left in vehicles — and summer doesn't officially begin until Saturday.