A 29-year-old Texas father is facing serious charges after his five children were found asleep inside a hot car without air conditioning Sunday.
Jose Leal was outside the parked car where his five kids, aged from 1 to 6, were left unattended as temperatures reached triple digits in Fort Worth.
Officers said that when they responded to the scene, some of the children were asleep and others passed out. The engine was still running and the windows rolled up.
First responders removed the children from their father’s car into air-conditioned vehicles before rushing them to a hospital.
Leal was hit with five counts of abandonment/endangerment to a child with bodily injury.
“In temperatures like we’re seeing right now in North Texas, the inside of that vehicle in a matter of minutes can go to 140, 150 degrees, which means that the body temperature of the child inside that car is going to go to 104, 105 degrees,” Paramedic Matt Zavadsky said.
“And the child’s vital organs – the brain, the heart, the kidneys – cannot function at that level of temperature.”
