A 4-month-old girl died
early Friday after being left in a minivan parked outside an
office building Thursday for more than three hours.
Police said Kim Crawford,
27, of Mesa forgot to drop off the infant at day care before
work. Jordan Crawford remained in the family minivan for more
than three hours, her body temperature reaching 109 degrees.
Crawford told investigators that a phone call with her
husband triggered her memory; he had asked about the baby,
said Sgt. Randy Force of Phoenix police. She then raced to the
minivan and retrieved her daughter.
By then it was noon
and 102 degrees outside. Police believe it was likely 120 to
140 degrees in the car.
Jordan was flown to Maricopa
Medical Center, where doctors said she had little brain
activity and could not breathe on her own. The prognosis
wasn't good, Force said, but "we're all hoping for a miracle
here."
Force said the 4-month-old died at 2:40 a.m. He
said investigators so far have limited their questioning to
give the family time to cope with the tragedy.
"On one
hand you want to be angry and outraged . . . and then you
realize the parents are going through far worse than anything
the criminal justice system could do to them," Force said. "By
all outward signs they are very responsible parents. Just one
morning lapse."
Force said a report will be submitted
to the county attorney's office, which will decide whether to
file charges.
The vehicle was parked in a lot in the
4700 block of East Elliot Road. Crawford is a trade-magazine
editor.
Greta Rogers of Ahwatukee Foothills pulled into
the parking lot just as medical teams arrived.
She
watched as the baby's father, Greg Crawford, was rushed into
the business where paramedics worked on his child and
described him as being "white as a sheet."
"How can you
be a competent, thinking person and leave your baby in the
car?" Rogers said.
"It makes me furious. This kind of
thing is too commonplace in this city."
A Phoenix
mother is still being investigated after her 7-month-old boy
was left in a van outside their home Aug. 10.
The
infant was in the vehicle for more than an hour in 110-degree
heat.
When paramedics reached the boy, his body
temperature was 108 degrees. He died at Maryvale
Hospital.
Vanessa Raban, 29, told police she thought
one of her five children would remove the boy from his car
seat.
More than a dozen Arizona children have died of
hyperthermia in vehicles since 1998, according to the national
non-profit group Kids and Cars.
Parents were arrested
in at least four of those cases.
A Mesa baby-sitter is
awaiting trial in the death of an 18-month-old girl left in
her van in July 2003.
Arizona Republic reporters
Lindsey Collom and Emily Bittner contributed to this
article.