Lakewood Woman Charged In Death Of Child Left In Car

LAKEWOOD, NJ — A Lakewood woman has been charged following the death of her 21-month-old daughter, who was left in a hot car in early May, the Ocean County prosecutor's office announced Monday.

Chaya Shurkin, 25, of Lakewood, was charged with second-degree endangering the welfare of a child, Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer said.

Lakewood police were called to the family's home on May 6 for a report of a child in distress and found a neighbor trying to perform CPR on the child, prosecutors said. The little girl was taken to Monmouth Medical Center Southern Campus in Lakewood, but did not survive.

"A thorough and extensive investigation revealed that the child had been left alone in Shurkin’s motor vehicle for approximately 2-1/2 hours with the car turned off, in the heat," Billhimer said. "The investigation determined that the act of leaving the child in the car unattended for such a long period of time was the cause and manner of the child’s death."

According to an NBC News 4 report, Shurkin tried to take the girl to day care but the toddler didn't want to go in, so Shurkin drove home. But when she arrived home, there was a miscommunication about whether the toddler’s mother or father would bring the toddler in from the car, the report said, quoting an unnamed law enforcement source.

The news release from the prosecutor's office praised its Major Crime Unit, the Ocean County Sheriff’s Department Crime Scene Investigation Unit, the Lakewood Township Police Department, and the state and Ocean County Medical Examiner’s Offices "for their assistance with this very comprehensive investigation."

Kids and Cars, a safety advocacy group, says the "greenhouse effect" can cause the inside of cars to heat up to dangerous temperatures within 10 minutes. Children have died in cars even when the outside is as low as 60 degrees, the group said.

Last year, a record 52 children died of vehicular heatstroke after they were left in hot cars, according to data compiled by the National Safety Council.

The previous single-year high for pediatric heatstroke was 49, set in 2010.

On average, 38 children die in hot cars every year, and so far this year, seven children died of vehicular heatstroke, according to Kids and Cars.

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