Queensland Police have referred to the deaths of two infants who were discovered in a car in a remote hamlet in Queensland as a “tragic accident”.
Around 7:48 p.m. Friday night, emergency personnel were summoned to a private property in Woorabinda, approximately 170 kilometers west of Rockhampton, where they discovered a two-year-old who was unresponsive.
After being brought to Woorabinda hospital, the infant was declared dead.
When emergency personnel arrived back on the scene at 9:15 p.m., they discovered a second, three-year-old child in the same vehicle. That youngster was rushed to the hospital and later declared dead.
Residents saw the two-year-old sitting on the back seat, unconscious, according to Detective Inspector Darrin Shadlow, but the three-year-old was not discovered at first.
“The second child was laying down in the rear foot well of the vehicle and wasn’t seen by the residents when they located the first child,” Shadlow stated.
Shadlow acknowledged that although the kids weren’t brothers, they were related.
It looks to be a horrible accident involving youngsters who have somehow got into the vehicle and have been there for a while because the vehicle was in the home’s rear yard.
We’ll closely inspect the car to make sure the door locks and other hardware are in working order.
“It is not a used vehicle so there was no electronics for the windows or anything like that.”
Though preliminary examinations have not revealed the cause of death, Shadlow believes it may have been heat-related stress.
He verified that when the kids were discovered, people were living there.
“It is a tragic event for the community and also for the hospital staff and the first responders.”
At the address, police have set up a crime scene.
