Toddler dies after being forgotten in vehicle in Netanya

3-year-old left in pre-school transport vehicle for hours; MDA paramedics unable to resuscitate her; driver detained by police for questioning.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN, JPOST.COM STAFF
Magen David Adom ambulances 311 (photo credit: Reuters)
Magen David Adom ambulances 311
(photo credit: Reuters)
A three-year-old girl died Monday after being forgotten in a vehicle used to transport toddlers to and from a preschool in Netanya.
According to police, the toddler was picked up from her home by the transport vehicle on Monday morning in order to be delivered to the preschool.
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The driver dropped off all of the children in the vehicle at the school and forgot the three-year-old girl in the van.
The driver then returned home, parking the vehicle with the child trapped inside.
Upon returning to the vehicle at approximately 2 p.m. to pick the children up from the preschool and take them back to their homes, he discovered the girl in the van, unconscious and not breathing.
The driver called emergency services to the scene, but Magen David Adom paramedics were unable to resuscitate the girl. She was pronounced dead on the scene.
The driver was detained by police for questioning.
In June, a seven-month-old girl was left in serious condition after being left by her father in a car for almost three hours.
The father told police he had been driving his daughter to nursery school, when he received an urgent call from work.
He continued talking on the phone as he exited the car and forgot his young daughter in the car.
After almost three hours, the father returned to the car with the intention of heading to a work meeting, and found the baby unconscious, suffering from convulsions and symptoms of heat stroke.
“We call on parents to make sure they guard against absent-mindedness that can lead to babies being left in cars,” a police spokesman told The Jerusalem Post following June’s incident.
“Anyone left in a sealed-off car in the summer can begin feeling suffocated within minutes,” the spokesman warned.
Magen David Adom head Eli Bin said in a statement, “Every summer we see difficult cases like this. I implore parents to pay more attention to the presence and condition of children during the summer months, in order to prevent similar incidents in the future.”
The driver is the husband of the pre-school teacher where the toddlers were taken. The driver and his wife were both questioned for several hours at a Netanya police station on Monday evening.