NEW BRAUNFELS – A 6-month-old girl is dead after being left in a hot car for more than eight hours on Tuesday.
Lt. Michael Penshorn with the New Braunfels Police Department said officers were called to the 700 block of Landa Street just after 5 p.m. for a child who had been left in a vehicle.
When emergency responders arrived, they found the child still strapped to the child seat; she was pronounced dead at the scene. The child was later transported to Christus New Braunfels and then the Zoeller Funeral Home.
Penshorn said initial information indicates the mother came to work around 8 a.m. and inadvertently left the child in the vehicle.
As she was leaving work for the day, she noticed that the child was still in the vehicle.
According to the the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, the mother, Kayla Carlson is an employee at the newspaper.
The article also said that Carlson forgot to drop the child off at daycare before she came to work.
The publisher of the Herald-Zeitung, Doug Toney, is quoted as saying:
“The New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung family is devastated ... Kayla is a valued employee. We all were able to watch her and support her in her pregnancy; her colleagues here threw her a baby shower at work.”
The case is still under investigation. It is unknown whether the mother will face any charges.
“We’re looking at all the different aspects of what exactly happened, and I think we’ll come to a conclusion. We’ll have a better understanding on that,” Penshorn said.
KENS 5 chief meteorologist Bill Taylor said the high in New Braunfels on Tuesday was 84 degrees.
