Baby Rescued From Heat of Parked Car

Despite sweltering temperatures that could have proven fatal, a 9-month-old infant survived seemingly unscathed when his father left him in a locked car in a Lancaster parking lot with the windows rolled up.

Sheriff’s deputies, notified by passersby, rescued the child by forcing open a door of the car parked in front of the Costco store.

The baby’s father, William Lynch, 27, was taken into custody when he came out of the store and returned to the car. He was arrested on charges of child endangerment and taken to Antelope Valley Sheriff’s Station where he was held on $50,000 bail.

The incident occurred at 11 a.m., when temperatures had already reached 100 degrees. The midsize car where the infant was discovered was completely closed up and parked on asphalt in an area without trees or shade.

“The child was extremely hot, he was sweating profusely,” said Fire Capt. Justin Demello. “Other than those two things he appeared to be in good shape.”

A Sheriff’s Department report said the infant, who was taken to Antelope Valley Hospital for observation, is believed to have been locked in the car for at least 20 minutes before being rescued.

Authorities did not know whether Lynch forgot his son was in the car or thought he could do his shopping so quickly that the child would not be affected by the extreme heat.

When Lynch returned to his car, Demello said, he simply identified himself as the boy’s father and began crying.

Mary Wamsley, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles SPCA/SouthernCalifornia Humane Society, said the temperature inside a car can soar to 160 degrees in just 10 minutes, even when a window is cracked open.

Such temperatures could cause “permanent brain damage or even death,” she said.

The car did not even have a covering over the front window, Demello said.

“When a car is closed up there’s no way for the heat to dissipate,” he said.

If the infant had been left in the car much longer, Demello said, the outcome could have been tragic. “It’s just lucky someone saw the child in the car.”

Other shoppers saw the child, who was crying in a car seat positioned behind the driver’s seat, and called for help, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

After a sheriff’s deputy was able to open the car, Demello said, the fire crew immediately worked to lower the child’s body temperature by putting cool water on him and then placing him in the back of an air-conditioned ambulance.

“He’s a fair-skinned child and he was beet red,” Demello said. “One of the good things was that he was still sweating. When you get to the critical stage you’re not sweating.”

The infant was released to his mother, who came from the family’s Acton home to retrieve him.