Girls in hot-car tragedy ran off from sitters, sheriff says

August 15, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

MEDINA, Ohio

A 2-year-old girl died, and her 3-year-old sister is in critical condition after they ran off from their baby sitters in Northeast Ohio and got stuck inside a neighbor’s hot car.

The Medina County Sheriff’s office says the girls’ 13-year-old cousin and 12-year-old friend were watching them when the toddlers wandered off.

Authorities say the girls’ grandfather called 911 to report that Justina and Mary McCormick were missing. He told a dispatcher he thought the girls were sleeping until the baby sitters told him they’d wandered off. The girls’ parents were at work.

“They said they last saw the girls playing in the living room,” Chief Deputy Kenneth Baca said. “These kinds of calls are not uncommon. Usually, the child is found sleeping under a pile of clothes. Unfortunately, this one ended tragically.”

A next-door neighbor noticed that her car door wasn’t closed and found the two girls inside. Temperatures had climbed into the 80s.

Deputies performed CPR on Justina, but she was pronounced dead when she was taken to a local hospital. Baca said he stayed by Mary, who was barely conscious.

“I just wanted to keep her eyes from closing,” he said.

Mary was in critical condition at a Cleveland hospital Saturday.

Authorities are trying to determine how long the girls were in the car.

“It doesn’t take long for a car in direct sunlight with the windows closed to heat up,” Baca said.

Once authorities finish investigating, the county prosecutor and coroner will decide whether to pursue charges, Baca said.

“As it stands right now, the people who were supposed to be baby-sitting them were the 12- and 13-year-old, and that’s part of the investigation that needs to be looked at and will be,” Baca said.