A San Antonio, Texas, sheriff’s deputy has been arrested and subsequently terminated from his position after leaving his 2-month-old infant in a sweltering car for approximately three hours on Monday, according to authorities.
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office disclosed that Antonio Almaraz, aged 31, was apprehended shortly after the infant was rushed to the hospital.
The incident unfolded when the 2-month-old was found unresponsive inside the vehicle just after 1 p.m. local time and was subsequently transported to the hospital. As of Tuesday, the infant remained in critical condition.
On Monday, the National Weather Service in San Antonio issued a weather forecast indicating temperatures as high as 94 degrees, with expectations of “mainly dry and warm conditions” in the days ahead.
Deputies reported that Almaraz provided conflicting statements regarding the incident. However, investigators revealed that he had taken the child to a routine doctor’s appointment at approximately 9 a.m. local time before returning home just after 10 a.m. local time. Allegedly, he turned off the vehicle and went inside the residence, leaving the baby unattended.
The sheriff’s office became aware of the situation around 2 p.m. local time when the hospital contacted them to report the incident.
Almaraz, who had been hired on February 20, received a notice of dismissal since he was still within the probationary period with the sheriff’s office. He is facing charges of injury to a child, abandoning a child with intent to return, and endangering a child.
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar issued a statement, expressing his concern: “Given the amount of awareness in the community regarding leaving children unattended in vehicles, there is absolutely no valid excuse for this to have occurred. My family and I are praying for the best possible outcome for this precious baby.”
Tragically, hot car-related deaths are the leading cause of non-crash-related vehicle fatalities among children in the United States. Within just 30 minutes, a vehicle’s temperature can rise by up to 40 degrees, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
Approximately 40 children lose their lives due to heatstroke after being left or trapped in a hot vehicle each year, the NHTSA states. This amounts to about one child every ten days.
Over the past 25 years, over 950 children have lost their lives due to hot car incidents, according to the agency. A majority of these incidents (53%) occur because someone forgets a child in a hot car, and in approximately 46% of such cases, the caregiver had intended to drop the child off at a daycare or preschool.
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Notably, the number of child hot car deaths decreased in recent years, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on remote work. In 2020 and 2021, the annual numbers for hot car deaths involving children were 25 and 23, respectively, each representing less than half the figure for 2019, which was 53. In the previous year, there were a total of 33 reported hot car deaths, according to the NHTSA.