A 72-year-old has been arrested after a three-year-old boy tragically lost his life in a popular Spanish town, where he was found trapped inside a car in 27°C heat.
Emergency responders rushed to the scene in Linares, located in the Andalusian province of Jaén, following a frantic 999 call from a member of the public just before 3 p.m. on Tuesday.
The car was parked on a street in a residential area of Linares, where temperatures climbed to around 27°C today.
Rescue workers freed the boy from the vehicle, where he was found without a heartbeat, and attempted to revive him for several minutes.
The child was then rushed to a local hospital but was tragically pronounced dead.
Police confirmed last night that a 72-year-old man, locally described as a retired teacher, was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter following the incident.
Local reports identified him as the child’s foster father and suggested that he ‘forgot’ the youngster in the back of his car after returning home without dropping him off at nursery, for reasons that remain unclear.
He is said to have realized what had happened only after his wife went to pick the child up.
A three-year-old boy died in a popular Spanish tourist town after being found trapped inside a parked car in 27°C heat.
Emergency responders, including police and paramedics, were dispatched to the scene following a 999 call from a member of the public just before 3 p.m. this afternoon.
Rescue workers attempted to revive him for several minutes after freeing him from the vehicle, where he was found without a heartbeat.
Pictured: Linares, located in the Andalusian province of Jaén
When she found their son wasn’t at the kindergarten, she returned to the couple’s flat, expecting him to be there.
The couple’s car had tinted windows, which reportedly contributed to the youngster not being spotted earlier while strapped in his car seat.
In April, a three-year-old child tragically died after his 39-year-old aunt ‘forgot’ to drop him off at nursery and left him asleep in the back seat of her car in scorching heat.
She went to work and only realized six hours later, during a lunch break, what had happened. She alerted police and firefighters, who rushed the child—described as being in critical condition—to hospital, where he suffered a fatal cardiac arrest.
Detectives launched a manslaughter investigation following the incident.
On November 14, 2023, two-year-old Apollo Gabriel Rodrigues died after allegedly being forgotten by his school minibus driver and the driver’s wife, who worked as a monitor, in Villa Maria, north of São Paulo’s city center.
Flavio Robson Benes, 45, found the child unconscious on a back seat of the vehicle and rushed him to the hospital, but Apollo was pronounced dead shortly after arrival.
Both Benes and his partner, 44-year-old Luciana Coelho Graft, were questioned by police as part of a homicide investigation ahead of the youngster’s funeral.
The minibus was part of a free school transport scheme operated by the city council.
Apollo’s mother, Kaliane Rodrigues, recalled how her son had been crying when she handed him over for nursery because he “didn’t want to go.”
She told local media, “Apollo usually sat in the front, but the driver’s assistant put him on the back seat and forgot about him.”
Two-year-old Apollo Rodrigues died in São Paulo, Brazil, in November after a school van driver and his assistant—who is also his wife—forgot to escort him out of the vehicle and to his daycare center.
“Regardless of where she placed him in the van, she’s been negligent and irresponsible because anyone who works with children has to always be attentive.
‘I want justice. All I want is for justice to be done.’
In September 2023, a baby girl named Madalena tragically died after being left in a car on a Portuguese university campus for several hours in 26°C heat.
The 10-month-old child’s father, a lecturer and departmental head at a campus near Lisbon, is believed to have forgotten to drop her off at the creche before going to work, leaving her inside the vehicle.
He reportedly called 999 after realizing his tragic mistake and finding the baby unconscious in the car.
Despite efforts to revive her, she was pronounced dead at the scene.
The unnamed father is said to have parked the family SEAT Ateca near the campus creche around 8 a.m. on September 12, then proceeded to his office at the Nova School of Science and Technology.
In a similar case in August 2018, a 10-month-old baby girl died in the Majorcan town of Manacor after her grandfather left her in the back of his car for eight hours in temperatures up to 30°C, having forgotten to drop her off at nursery.
He discovered her deceased when he returned to the vehicle after running errands several hours later. The unnamed man accepted a one-year prison sentence in March 2020.
