A toddler has been found dead in a hot car outside of a Southwest Florida church and school.
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office launched an investigation on Tuesday, July 21, after deputies located a deceased child in a hot car at 7806 College Parkway.
The child was 17 months old, according to the sheriff’s office.
The address where the child was found is the location of Vine Church and Vine Christian Academy. A pastor of Vine Church has a business at the address of the incident under the name Vine Christian College Inc., registered on Sunbiz, which is Florida’s database for registering business and corporations.
The pastors of Vine Church, Raphael and Juliana Fernandez, who are married, did not immediately respond to requests for comment by the News-Press.
Pastor at south Fort Myers church expects to issue a statement
However, Raphael Fernandes told the News-Press that Vine Church will be issuing a statement about the incident.
The investigation is ongoing and no arrests have been made as of Wednesday afternoon, July 22.
Vine Church established the Vine Christian Academy in 2022. The academy includes a daycare program that accepts children as young as 2 months old.
In addition to the daycare, there is also a preschool and elementary school within Vine Christian Academy.
The News-Press requested a comment from Vine Christian Academy.
A woman who answered the phone at the academy said that neither she, nor anyone else at the school, would be commenting out of respect to the toddler’s family.
How commonly do children die in hot cars?
The Fort Myers girl is the fifth to child to die in a hot car in Florida in 2026, according to a news release issued by Kids and Car Safety, an organization that tracks such deaths nationally.
At least 14 have died in this manner across the United States, the news release said.
The safety organization said that in Florida, children died this year in hot cars in Winter Haven, March 31; Riverview, June 20, Plantation, June 29 and Hallandale Beach, July 5.
Historically, July is the deadliest month for children left in cars. And with heat index forecasts in Naples hovering around 110 degrees this summer, advocates are urging parents to take steps to prevent hot car deaths, like making it a habit to check the backseat before locking the car.
How hot can cars get inside?
Temperatures inside a car generally increase by just over three degrees every five minutes with the highest increases happening in the first 30 minutes, according to a study by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The study also showed cracking a window does little to mitigate high temperatures inside a car.
On a 95-degree day, the interior temperature of a car can reach 138 degrees within an hour. When outside temperatures reach the triple digits, interior car temperatures can reach deadly levels within minutes.
Even on seemingly cooler days with highs in the 60s, the inside of cars can reach up to 110 degrees, which can be deadly.
When do temperatures become deadly?
A child’s body temperature rises three to five times faster than an adult’s, making heat stroke a bigger threat to children.
When a child’s internal body temperature reaches 104 degrees, heat stroke sets in, with death occurring when the body reaches 107 degrees.
How do hot car deaths happen?
Most child deaths due to vehicular heat stroke are accidental with adults forgetting small children in the car.
Nationwide, almost 53% of all hot car deaths happened because parents didn’t see their children in the backseat before leaving the car, which happens most often after a change of routine when parents go into what experts call autopilot and forget their kids in the car.
Almost 24% of deaths happened after the kid got in the car on their own without a parent’s knowledge.
Only 22% of kids killed from vehicular heat stroke were purposely left in the car.
Tips to prevent hot car deaths
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a number of tips for parents on how to make sure their children are safe.
The NHTSA also issued tips for bystanders including always making sure cars are locked so neighborhood kids can’t get inside and urged them to call 911 immediately if they see a distressed child inside a hot car.
Tayeba Hussein covers breaking news. Reach her at thussein@news-press.com.
You can reach Naples Daily News reporter Alexa Ryan at Alexa.Ryan@naplesnews.com. Follow her on X @AlexaRyan_ or on Instagram @alexaryanreports.
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: SW Florida toddler dies in hot car at south Fort Myers church
Reporting by Tayeba Hussein and Alexa Ryan, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News / Fort Myers News-Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Tayeba Hussein and Alexa Ryan, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News | USA TODAY Network
