Rhonda Jewell Florida babysitter leaves baby to die in 133F hot car after forgetting baby sitting in parked car in the driveway for more than 5 hours.
A Florida babysitter faces manslaughter charges after leaving a 10-month-old child in her care in a hot car with interior temperature reaching more than 130 degrees earlier this week.
Rhonda Jewell, 46, was charged on Wednesday with the aggravated manslaughter of a child just hours after the infant was pronounced dead, the Baker County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, Jewell picked up the 10-month-old from the mother’s residence in north Macclenny around 8 a.m. Wednesday, and drove the child to another address on Estates Street in south Macclenny where she planned to watch three other children.
Temperature inside the vehicle soared to over 133 degrees,
At some point, Jewell forgot she had the baby in the vehicle while interacting with the other children.
Jewell, who had been watching the baby since June ‘on and off’, had gone into the home, leaving the infant inside the car parked in the driveway for at least five hours, by which time the infant had mortally succumbed to the heat, cops said.
The child’s mother made the macabre discovery when she came to pick the baby up around 1 p.m., First Coast News reported.
After the panicked parent called 911 to report that her baby was not breathing and had blue lips, first responders transported the infant to Fraser Memorial Hospital.
The baby was subsequently pronounced deceased.
Deputies who responded to the scene told the medical staff that the infant was very hot to the touch, the outlet reported.
The sheriff’s office later determined that the temperature inside the vehicle soared to over 133 degrees, while the baby’s external temperature read 102.1 degrees.
The infant’s internal temperature was 110 degrees, though this was the highest temperature the hospital thermometer could read.
Temperatures in Macclenny reached a high of 99 degrees on Wednesday, according to Accuweather.
‘Each of us are given the gift of life every morning we wake up and every evening when we finish our day, we are blessed if our family is safe and healthy. In the blink of an eye, our world can be turned upside down,’ Sheriff Scotty Rhoden said in a statement Thursday.
‘Please be mindful of this when trying to understand the tragedy that took place in our small town yesterday.’
Jewell posted a $25,000 bond, and was freed with GPS monitoring.
