Girl, 2, dies after being locked in hot car as 'dad forgot to drop her off at nursery'

A two-year-old girl has died after her dad "forgot" to take her to nursery and left her locked inside the back of his hot car for five hours while he went to work.

The tot was left in her child seat as temperatures in the area reached highs of 26C, and was unresponsive by the time he got back. She was rushed to hospital, where medics attempted to revive her after discovering she had gone into cardiac arrest, but she was tragically pronounced dead shortly after arrival.

A manslaughter probe has now been launched by police in the east coast Spanish city of Castellon where Tuesday's horror occurred. The toddler was left from around 11am to 4pm. No one is thought to have spotted her during this time, and it was only when her father finished work and returned that he realised what had happened. He then took her to Castellon Provincial Hospital.

READ MORE - Former Irish Minister went on 24-hour booze bender before quitting the Dail

READ MORE - CAB target and ‘Irish based leader of transnational OCG’ claimed he trained to be a doctor

According to AccuWeather, temperatures in Castellon would have reached highs of 26C while the tot was trapped. Detectives have not named the dad or identified street the car was parked in. An autopsy is expected to expected to reveal the child's death was heat-related.

A four-year-old boy died in the municipality of O Porrino near the city of Pontevedra in Spain’s north-west Galician region in July last year after his mum “forgot” he was in the back of her car and left him unattended for several hours in eighty degree heat to go to work. The youngster is said to have been left alone in the vehicle for six hours before anyone realised.

In September last year a baby girl died after being left in a car on a Portuguese university campus for several hours in 26C heat. The 10-month-old child’s father, described locally at the time as a lecturer and departmental head at the campus near Lisbon, is said to have forgotten to drop her off at her creche before going to work and leaving her in the vehicle. A criminal probe was launched.

In August 2018 a 10-month-old baby girl died in the Majorcan town of Manacor after her grandfather left her in the back of his car for eight hours in temperatures of up to 30C (86 degrees Fahrenheit) after forgetting to leave her at a nursery school.

He found her dead when he returned to the vehicle after running errands several hours later. The unnamed man later accepted a year’s prison sentence in March 2020.