Baby found dead in car parked at St. Louis medical school

~ The 7-month-old had been left in the car for three hours.

ST. LOUIS -- A 7-month-old baby was found dead in the heat of a parked car Thursday on a parking lot at the Washington University School of Medicine, authorities said.

The child's parents are a doctor and a medical researcher at the university. Their names and the child's name have not been released.

Washington University officials declined to comment.

On a day with the high temperature in the upper 90s, a woman spotted the baby, ran inside a building for help and called 911, and broke the car window, Police Capt. James Gieseke said. Rescuers tried to revive the child, and got her to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead, he said.

The child had been in the car for three hours, he said. It's believed the mother left the child in the back seat of the father's car, but that the father thought the mother had taken the child. The 7-month-old had been placed by the mother in a child seat that faces the rear. The father was the last person to have the child.

"There was a horrible, devastating mix-up as to who was going to take the child to day care," Gieseke said.

Details were still sketchy because the couple were too distraught to give complete statements, Gieseke said.

"They are totally devastated by this," he said.

Health officials say children and pets can become seriously ill or die if left in an unattended vehicle, even for a short time.

Jan Null, adjunct professor of meteorology at San Francisco State University, said the death was the 22nd in the United States this year involving a child left in a hot vehicle. But the year's 23rd child death in a vehicle occurred only hours later in Cincinnati -- that of a 2-year-old.

Null, who performs research into how hot a vehicle gets and tracks child deaths in hot vehicles, said it was the first such case in Missouri this year but the 12th in the state since 1998.

Null said that if the outside temperature was 95 degrees, the temperature inside the car would have exceeded 140 degrees.

"That's a lethal temperature for an infant or small child," Null said. "Their body temperatures increase three to five times faster than ours would."

Null's research shows that about two-fifths of deaths of children in hot vehicles occur when the child is accidentally forgotten by a caregiver. About a quarter of the cases involve children playing in cars. About 20 percent are children intentionally left in cars.

"The 5-minute trip to the bank that ends up taking a half-hour can be deadly," Null said. "Children should never be left unattended in vehicles. Period."

The St. Louis area previously reported nine deaths from a nearly monthlong heat wave. The high temperature has topped 90 degrees every day but one since July 31, and a high reading in the upper 90s is predicted for today. Temperatures are expected to cool into the 80s by the weekend.

Most of the victims of the heat wave in the St. Louis area have been elderly, including a 68-year-old woman found in her Jennings home Wednesday. Her air conditioner was set at 70 and fans were blowing, but authorities said the temperature inside the house was 90 degrees when she was found.

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Associated Press reporter Cheryl Wittenauer in St. Louis contributed to this report.