Kit Roberts
The mom of a three-year-old girl who died after being left in a hot car has issued a warning.
Charlotte Jones was left in a car in 2019 during 36C heat (96F), and died from heat stroke as a result.
Her father Scott had driven her and her sister to school for the usual drop off, and then returned home with Charlotte in the car.
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Scott forgot that his daughter, who was ill at the time, had not been left at school that morning.
He then logged into work and didn't realise that his daughter had been left in the car until his wife rang four hours later.
Mom Angela recalled the moment that her husband's voice changed on the phone after he realised what had happened.
She told Fox News Digital: "All of a sudden I could just hear a panic in his voice."
The mom added: "I initially thought she had gotten into the pool or something like that, and then he was like, 'Oh, my God, I don’t think I ever got her out of the car'.
"Then it hit him what has happening and he ran out into the driveway."
Despite Scott immediately calling 911 it was already too late as his daughter had died from heatstroke in the hot car.
Angela remembered her daughter in a heartbreaking interview, saying: "She was the light in our family, and we are constantly talking about her... We did everything we could to protect our children, and we just never realized that this was a danger until it happened to us."
The mom went on to warn other parents about the dangers of hot cars, and suggested simple measures to ensure it doesn't happen.
She said: "I just want it to resonate with other people so they can have a backup plan or do things because this is a preventable tragedy and it can be stopped through your different measure."
Dr David Diamon, a professor of psychology at the University of Southern Florida, explained that it can be terrifyingly easy to forget something so important.
He told NBC Florida: "We have powerful brain-autopilot brain-memory system that gets us to do things automatically and, in that process, we lose awareness of other things in our mind, including that there's a child in the car."
Records indicate that over the last 25 years more than 950 children have died in hot cars, with 56 occurring in California alone.