Gwinnett County (Georgia) police arrested a Northside Gwinnett Hospital employee whose 1-year-old son was found dead in a hot car.
Police responded to a report of an unresponsive child in a car parked outside Northside Gwinnett Hospital on Wednesday, July 29.
Arriving officers found the vehicle in the hospital’s employee parking lot around 3:50 p.m., Gwinnett County Police Captain Dena Pauly said during a press conference on Thursday.
First responders attempted CPR on the boy but he had been dead in his car seat for hours.
The child’s mother, Deja Coleman, 29, told police she dropped her other two children off at daycare that morning and drove to work at the hospital. Coleman said she arrived at work around 6:50 a.m. and “forgot” her son was in the backseat.
Hours later, a hospital employee walking by the car noticed the baby boy “slumped in the car seat” and banged on the window, but there was no response. The employee called 911, WSB-TV reported.
An hour after the child was removed from the car by police, the temperature inside the vehicle was 117 degrees, according to 11 Alive News.
Capt. Pauly said she located the mother inside the hospital after running the car’s tag. Pauly said Coleman “was devastated” when told that her son was dead.
Coleman was booked into the Gwinnett County Detention Center on charges of second-degree murder and second-degree cruelty to children.
Coleman’s 2 other children are in the care of their father, police said.