A family in Madisonville, Kentucky is grieving after a routine morning turned into every family’s worst nightmare.
RELATED: 11-Month-Old Baby Dies Alongside Family Dog After Being Left In A Hot Car For Hours
A local physician, identified by police as Dr. Stacey Fazenbaker, picked up her 10-month-old granddaughter as she normally would, planning to drop the baby at daycare before heading into her shift at Owensboro Health Multi-Care clinic. Somewhere between the pickup and the parking lot, that plan slipped away from her, and the baby never made it inside.
Police say Fazenbaker drove straight to work that morning around 8 a.m., the infant still buckled into her car seat in the back. For the next eight hours, life at the clinic went on as usual while the child sat outside in the summer heat, unnoticed.
The alarm didn’t go off until later that afternoon, when the baby’s father swung by daycare to pick her up, only to be told she’d never been dropped off that day. He called his wife. She called her mother. And that’s when the most heartbreaking news was uncovered.
Major Jason McKnight with local police described the scramble that followed, telling local reports that Fazenbaker ran outside with coworkers to try to reach the child, but by then it was already too late. First responders from the fire department and Med Center rushed to the clinic’s front parking lot, but they couldn’t save the baby.
Sadly, this isn’t an isolated case. Hot car deaths claim dozens of children across the country every year, and federal data shows the majority happen the exact same way, a parent or caregiver simply forgets a child is there. It doesn’t discriminate by income, education, or profession.
As of right now, no charges have been announced publicly as police continue investigating. For now, the Madisonville community is left to hold this family up, mourn a baby girl gone far too soon.