Toddlers die after being trapped in car
Two toddlers died from heat exposure after becoming trapped in an unused car in which they were playing in Durban.
Robert McKenzie, spokesman for the KwaZulu-Natal provincial Emergency Medical Service, said that the girl and boy were playing with two other toddlers in a disused car in Durban’s Clermont suburb when they became trapped.
McKenzie said that the circumstances surrounding how the four children became entrapped in the vehicle, leading to the death of two of them, was subject to an investigation.
Temperatures in Durban on Tuesday topped 31 degrees Celcius and while Mckenzie would not be drawn on the cause of death, it is possible that they died from dehydration and perhaps from suffocation if windows in the car were closed.
“It is alleged that community members noticed the children in the car and rescued them from in the hot vehicle before rushing them to the local Community Health Centre,” said McKenzie.
Paramedics were called, but little could be done for the two toddlers, while the other two — a boy and girl, both aged three years — were rushed to a provincial hospital.
McKenzie said he was not certain of the relationship between the four children. He said police were investigating the incident.