A baby died in his mother’s hot car after she forgot to drop him off at daycare and left him in the back seat while she worked at a Gwinnett hospital, Lawrenceville police said.
The mother is now facing charges in his death, which she learned about when police met with her at work to tell her the tragic news, according to officials.
Deja Coleman, 29, told investigators she didn’t remember her son was still in his car seat after taking her older two children to daycare on her way to her job at Northside Hospital Gwinnett, police said at a news conference Thursday.
“She forgot,” police spokesperson Capt. Dena Pauly said. “Her normal routine is to take the older kids into daycare, come back and retrieve the baby out of the car seat. And, unfortunately, yesterday morning she forgot to make that second trip.”
Coleman has been charged with murder in the second degree and cruelty to children, police said.
Police said they responded just before 4 p.m. to the hospital after receiving a call from a bystander who reported an “unresponsive child locked in a vehicle.” The bystander told police they had tried to bang on the car’s window, but the baby did not respond, Pauly said.
The baby was in the car from around 6:55 a.m., when the mother arrived at the parking lot for work, until around 3:55 p.m., when police got into the locked car and found him dead in his car seat, according to investigators.
An hour after the baby was removed from the car and a window was broken, police said the temperature in the vehicle was recorded at 117 degrees.
All three of Coleman’s children typically go to daycare, Pauly said. Because one of the older children has medical needs that require special attention, the mother typically takes two of the children in first and comes back to take in the baby, Pauly said.
Coleman “was devastated” after police met with her in a conference room of the hospital and told her about her son’s death, Pauly added.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reached out to Northside Hospital for comment.
Court and jail records do not yet list an attorney for Coleman, who officials said was taken to the county detention center following her arrest. Attempts to reach other family members have been unsuccessful.
“Our condolences go out to anybody that loved this precious baby,” Pauly said.
Summer is the deadliest time of year for hot-car infant deaths, the AJC previously reported.
This baby’s death marks the 17th this year nationwide and the first in Georgia, according to data from the National Safety Council, a nonprofit that tracks such fatalities. Last year, two children died in hot cars in Georgia, and 34 died across the U.S.
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