14 DAY TRIAL // A toddler has died after being left by himself in a vehicle in Eslöv in southern Sweden, on the hottest day registered in the country this spring.
According to The Local, the boy's father accidentally left him in the car, forgetting to drop him off at daycare.
There is no indication of the exact temperature during the day at that point, but the infant was left in the sweltering vehicle for eight hours.
Neighbors in the small Eslöv community describe seeing the child's mother pick up the two-year-old boy from daycare as well as drive him there in the mornings.
This time, it was the father who was in charge of dropping him off. Chief prosecutor Mats Svensson mentioned that the dad realized at the end of the regular work day that he may not have taken the baby out of the car, eight hours after leaving him alone.
“The father has explained that he started thinking about whether he actually left his son at day care, and when he came back to the parking place, the boy was sitting there. He was sitting there for eight hours,” Svensson says.
“It’s a young couple, a completely typical family, where the mother usually does the day-care drop-off. But on this day, the father did it. He’s not in the habit of doing it,” he adds.
The father's name has not been released to the press as an investigation into the incident is ongoing. The cause of death also remains undisclosed.
“We are going to speak with the mother and day-care staff to find out what happened,” Svensson explains.
Police are also probing why staff didn't act to try to contact the parents when the child wasn't brought to the day care.
“Normally, they call one of the parents, so we need to look at their routine and see if something didn't work as it should,” Svensson details.