Sholom Tauber 3 year old boy dies hot car death after left for up to 8 hours in sweltering temperatures after boy’s father forgot to bring him into Miami Gardens daycare where he also worked.
A three-year-old Florida boy died a hot car death after ‘mistakenly’ being left inside his parents vehicle for up to eight hours amid sweltering temperatures outside a Miami preschool where both his parents worked as staff members.
Sholom Tauber was one of several children from the same family who attended Lubavitch Educational Center – a Jewish daycare – in Miami Gardens, the Miami Herald reported.
Temperatures outside were in the mid-90s Fahrenheit on Monday, with the heat index indicating 103 Fahrenheit as the highest temperature that day.
The unresponsive child was rushed to Jackson North Medical Center by helicopter, where he was pronounced dead.
The Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner confirmed Tauber died of hyperthermia, and heat exhaustion, and listed the death as as accidental, according to NBC Miami.
Accidental?
The boy’s father, Rabbi Menachem Tauber, was interviewed by police to assess the circumstances leading up to the boy’s death, Local 10 reported. His wife, Nehama Tauber also works at the day care although it remains unclear if she was scheduled to work on Monday.
Authorities believe the Rabbi forgot about his son after he pulled into work at the daycare on Monday morning.
Later that day, at around 3 p.m., the father rushed to his car after a person at the daycare told him that his son hadn’t been seen all day. However, the child was already believed to be dead, the Herald reports.
‘This tragedy hits close to home, and many in our school community have been affected by it. No words can capture the heartbreak and sadness we feel,’ Rabbi Benzion Korf, the center’s dean, said in a statement issued late Monday.
Korf said a therapist and grief counselor would be available for staff and students at the center on Tuesday.
‘Our deepest sympathies are with the family at this time of great loss,’ Benzion Korf wrote. ‘We ask the community for their prayers and to respect the family’s privacy as they grieve.’
Police are also looking into obtaining a warrant to access the daycare’s surveillance cameras or any security footage nearby the area to analyze the incident.
23 hot car deaths in the U.S. in 2021
It remains unclear how many of the victim’s family members are still attending the daycare.
Numbers from the National Safety Council show there were 23 hot car deaths in the U.S. last year.
Florida is the state with the second-highest hot car related deaths in the U.S after Texas, according to the National Safety Council.
Officially, there have been 99 hot car deaths in Florida since 1998.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the investigation into the boy’s death remains ongoing.
