A ONE-year-old boy has died a horrific death after being left in a sweltering car while his mom went to a med spa.
His two-year-old brother, also left strapped in the backseat, survived the blazing heat.
The incident happened on June 29 in Bakersfield, California, a city north of Los Angeles, as temperatures outside soared past 100 degrees.
Their mother, 20-year-old Maya Hernandez, allegedly left both toddlers locked inside her Toyota Corolla Hybrid.
A visit to Always Beautiful Med Spa for a cosmetic treatment was reported by the local NBC news station KGET, although the specific procedure remains unspecified.
While the appointment only took 15 to 20 minutes, Hernandez had left the boys in the car alone for nearly two hours.
Court records say she never once checked on her children during her appointment.
When help was finally called, baby Amillio Gutierrez was having a seizure, foaming at the mouth and shaking.
Doctors recorded his body temperature at a deadly 107 degrees.
Despite 40 minutes of resuscitation efforts at the hospital, Amillio was pronounced dead at 5:48 pm.
His brother survived and had a body temperature of 99 degrees, police said.
A witness working next door said surveillance cameras caught frantic efforts to save the boys.
“They’re trying to put cold water right here on the reception, and it was something very sad that never had to happen,” the witness told KGET.
The Corolla had reportedly been left running with the air conditioning set to 60 degrees.
However, Toyota confirmed to police that the car automatically shuts off after one hour of inactivity.
The car was parked in direct sunlight during the hottest part of the day, with outside temperatures around 101 degrees.
Data collected from 1998 to 2024
Since 1998, NoHeatStroke.org has been monitoring child fatalities in overheated vehicles, providing one of the most detailed sources of information available. Experts attribute the site’s importance, along with Kids and Car Safety, to the lack of uniform reporting methods across the country. This gap in data was noted in a study featured last year in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention.
- Almost three-fourths of children who died of vehicular heatstroke, also known as vehicular hyperthermia, were 2 years old or younger.
- Although 53% had been forgotten in parked automobiles, 24% got into a vehicle on their own.
- The 10 states where pediatric vehicular heatstroke was most common are Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
Inside, experts said it likely reached as high as 143 degrees.
Police said a spa worker had texted Hernandez earlier that morning, saying the kids could wait inside the lobby.
“Sure if you don’t mind them waiting in the waiting room hun,” the worker wrote, according to the police report.
Instead, both toddlers were found locked in their car seats hours later, unable to escape.
One customer grabbed Amillio drenched in sweat, and poured water on him inside the restroom.
“They were secured in their car seats and couldn’t even stand up to help themselves,” said the boys’ grandmother, Katie Martinez, in an interview with ABC local station KERO-TV.
According to police, Hernandez admitted she had thought about how dangerous it was beforehand, but still left the kids in the vehicle.
She has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and child cruelty, and is being held on over $1 million bail.
Hernandez is due back in court for a pre-preliminary hearing on July 11.
Court records also revealed she had a previous run-in with Child Protective Services in March 2024 over emotional abuse, though it was deemed unfounded.
The children’s father, who is in jail for an unrelated incident, was notified of his son’s death by jail staff.
“I never thought anything like this could happen,” grandmother Martinez told CBS affiliate KBTX.
“What happened to them shouldn’t happen to any other kid.”
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call or text the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 800 422 4453 or live chat at https://www.childhelphotline.org/.
If a child or other person is in immediate danger, contact 911 immediately.
