South Brunswick Police Save Baby From Hot Car

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ — A mother accidentally locked her 18-month-old baby in a hot car Thursday morning, and South Brunswick police had to shatter the car's windows to save the child from 90-degree-plus heat.

The incident happened in the Nassau Square townhouse complex off Route 27, police told Patch. Police were called there around 11:20 a.m. and found a distraught mother near her Honda CRV in a parking lot of the complex. The mother said she stopped in the complex to drop something off to a friend and got out of her vehicle.

Her friend's front door was only about 10 feet from the car, and the mom said she thought she left the vehicle running with the air conditioner on, according to police. The mother returned minutes later and realized the vehicle was off and locked with her keys inside. Her 18-month-old daughter was in a child seat in the backseat.

Sgt. Eric Buraszeski determined the child had been in the vehicle for 20 minutes, and temperatures outside were exceeding 90 degrees. He immediately broke a rear passenger window and was able to get the child out of the hot vehicle. The baby girl was sweating and crying, police told Patch. They took the girl inside and put cool water on her to bring her temperature down, Capt. James Ryan of the South Brunswick PD said.

“In this heat it will only take minutes for someone left inside a vehicle to suffer heat exhaustion or heat stroke. In this case, officers were able to quickly intervene and rescue this child," said South Brunswick Police Chief Raymond Hayducka.

The child was transported by South Brunswick EMS to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital for an evaluation.

Warning: This public safety video, which is a dramatization, may be hard for some to watch.

You might be surprised just how quickly a child can die when left in a hot car. According to that terrifying public safety video, it only takes 15 minutes for a child in a hot car to overheat, which can lead to brain jury, kidney failure and death. Children under 4 are unable to regulate their body temperature the way adults can.

And it also may surprise you to know just how often this happens: As of July 12, 19 kids died so far this year after being left in hot cars, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That number may climb as summer continues.

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