ANDERSON, Ind. – Detectives continue to investigate the death of a 3-year-old Indiana girl who they say was left in a hot car for about two hours, according to WXIN.
Police say the girl, identified as Hannah Grace Miller, of Anderson, was found unresponsive inside a car in the 1900 block of West 10th Street Sunday evening. It wasn't immediately known how she ended up in the vehicle.
Her father found her in the car and immediately started performing CPR. She was pronounced dead at St. Vincent Regional Hospital at 6:40 p.m. Sunday.
The Madison County coroner said the child's cause of death was acute heat exhaustion/overheating. No additional trauma was found and no foul play is suspected at this time.
Anderson Police Department Major Joel Sandefur said during a press conference Monday they were still in the early stages of the investigation and are working to gain a clearer picture of what happened.
“Well we are investigating so we want to do a thorough investigation that’s fair and accurate, so at that point we’re just going to go into and let the evidence lead us and direct us in the direction that we need to go,” said Sandefur.
No criminal charges have been filed. Sandefur said the parents have been cooperating with the investigation.
KidsAndCars.org says Indiana ranks in the top 30 states with the most child hot car deaths. Indiana has seen 11 such cases since 1997.
So far this year, eight hot car deaths have been reported with four others pending coroner confirmation, the group says. This is Indiana's first pediatric vehicular heatstroke of 2018.
