SPRING VALLEY – An infant who had been left alone for several hours in a parked car was found dead Tuesday, police said.
Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of the 1-year-old boy, who was discovered at 4:39 p.m. in a parked car on Ridge Avenue, Detective Philip Fantasia said in a news release Wednesday.
Police did not release the child’s gender or family details. The investigation is being conducted by police, the Sheriff’s Office Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Rockland Child Protective Services and the Rockland Coroner’s Office.
Babies die from not being watched
Kids and Car Safety advocates for preventative methods to stop hot car deaths among children. The organization said Wednesday that the Spring Valley baby was the third child killed in a hot car nationwide this year and the first in New York. Police have not confirmed that heat was the cause of the baby’s death.
More than “1,050 children have died in hot cars since 1990, and at least another 7,300 survived with varying types and severity of injuries,” according to the group. Approximately 87% of children who die in hot cars are 3 years old or younger and most, 56%, were unknowingly abandoned by a responsible and caring parent or caregiver.
There is technology that can prevent these unthinkable tragedies. The group said a provision was passed in November 2021 as part of the Jobs and Infrastructure Investment Act that requires the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to issue a regulation by November 2023 for technology in all new cars to help prevent deaths in hot cars.
Security advocates are working to ensure that the technology that will be required is the most effective available.
“We are committed to pushing occupant detection technology into all cars immediately,” said Janette Fennell, founder and president of Kids and Car Safety. “As we continue to advocate, children continue to die week after week. It’s beyond heartbreaking.”
He said “automakers don’t have to wait for the final regulation requiring technology to be issued” and “can add occupant-sensing technology to their vehicles today.”
David Diamond, a professor of Psychology, Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology at the University of South Florida, has studied hot car deaths for nearly two decades.
His research shows how the brain can go on autopilot during routine tasks, such as taking the kids to daycare on the way to work, but that a disruption in the subconscious memory system can lead to a false memory that makes it appear that the routine task has been completed, as it usually happens.
Warmer temperatures mean more children and families are at risk.
“Every summer we raise awareness about hot car tragedies, and every summer beautiful, healthy children continue to die in hot cars,” Kids and Car Safety said in a statement. “Effective and available technology to detect the presence of a child trapped inside a hot car must be required as standard equipment in all new cars immediately..“
The tragedy of the Rockland family with twins
In 2019, a New City father, Juan Rodriguez, faced criminal charges in the Bronx after he left his twins strapped in their car seats. He found them in the Honda Accord after leaving work at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx. Charges included second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and endangering the welfare of a child.
Authorities say his body temperature had reached 108 degrees, while temperatures outside were in the 80s.
Rodriguez, then 39 and an Iraq War veteran, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of second-degree reckless endangerment. Bronx Criminal Court Judge Jeffrey Rosenblueth sentenced him to a one-year conditional discharge.
She had dropped off her 4-year-old son at daycare and then went to work with the twins in child safety seats.
A few days after the incident, Rodriguez found Diamond’s research while trying to figure out how the incident happened.
Diamond, in a 2020 interview with the USA Today Network, recalled the emotional call that day. “I could sense how he had a combination of being so bewildered and so depressed,” she said. “He needed my help.”
Anyone with information about the Ridge Avenue case can call Detective Yakov Polowin at 845-356-7400 or email the police department at tips@villagespringvalley.org.
Steve Lieberman covers government, breaking news, courts, police and investigations. It comes to him a slieberm@lohud.com. Twitter: @lohudlegal.
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