Abandoned Car Becomes Deathtrap for 4-Year-Old : Tragedy: Family’s search for the missing boy ended at vehicle, parked across the street from a relative’s house. Police say the temperature inside may have reached 125 degrees.
The family of 4-year-old “Panchito†Hernandez gathered Wednesday at a home on a street in Pacoima, where the hottest day in the history of Los Angeles had transformed an abandoned car into a deadly oven that killed him.
“I don’t understand why he got in the car,†the boy’s mother, Maria Hernandez, 20, said. “I don’t know why he did it.â€
On Tuesday, a frantic Hernandez had pulled her son from the Ford LTD, which was parked across the street, about two hours after she noticed he was missing from her grandmother’s house in the 12700 block of Judd Street.
Los Angeles police said Francisco Hernandez, nicknamed Panchito, was dead when officers and paramedics arrived at about 5:30 p.m. Coroner’s officials attributed the death to excessive body heat caused by Tuesday afternoon’s triple-digit temperatures. Police estimated the temperature inside the car may have reached 125 degrees.
On Wednesday, children splashed in a plastic pool in the driveway as Hernandez was consoled by relatives.
The boy’s father, 26-year-old landscape worker Francisco Cano, leaned on a fence talking quietly with two men.
Hernandez, who is separated from Cano, said she, Panchito and her 5-month-old daughter had walked from their nearby home to the house on Judd Street at about 2 p.m. Tuesday. The boy began playing with cousins and friends who live next door. She noticed about half an hour later that he was not among the children playing near the house and began looking for him, first at a neighbor’s house and then at a nearby park.
“When I noticed he was missing, I went all the way to the park, I thought he might be there playing with other kids,†Hernandez said.
Friends and relatives joined the search. At about 5 p.m., Maria Hernandez’s aunt remembered seeing the boy near the abandoned car, which residents said has been parked across the street since the owner went to jail in October. They said they had seen children playing near the car in the past, but never inside it.
After discovering the boy unconscious in the back seat, Hernandez and the others tried to revive him. A neighbor, who is a nurse, unsuccessfully attempted CPR.
It is not clear whether the boy fell asleep or passed out after climbing into the car, said police Detective Al Ferrand. The car’s windows were rolled up and the doors were closed, police said.
The funeral will be this weekend or Monday, relatives said. Panchito would have started school next year, his mother said.
His father said he last saw the boy when he visited him Sunday as he did each weekend.
“I would take him to the park, to the store,†Cano said in Spanish. “He liked to play soccer, he liked his scooter.â€
Despite Tuesday’s heat, Hernandez said, the boy had been energetic during the walk to the Judd Street house.
“Whenever we walked over here, he was always hanging in back, walking behind,†she said. “Yesterday he was rushing, running in front.â€
Times staff writers Amy Louise Kazmin and Michael Connelly contributed to this story.
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