A community in Ontario has been rocked after a 23-month-old boy died when he was accidentally left in a hot car in front of his mother’s school, the mayor said.
Bancroft, Ont. Mayor Paul Jenkins, a close family friend who has known the family for 30 years, said Everett Smith died Thursday despite numerous attempts to revive him by teachers and emergency services at North Hastings High School.
Everett’s mother is a schoolteacher, Jenkins said. According to the mayor, the mother should have left her son in kindergarten on the way to work.
Jenkins said no one noticed that Everett was still in the car until the end of the school day. Most of southern Ontario was under a heat warning that day, with temperatures reaching 30 degrees. The maximum temperature recorded that day in Bancroft was 27.1 degrees
Ontario police were called to the school at 3:45 p.m. for a child found without vital signs. Police said the child was transported to hospital by ambulance, but was soon found dead.
“This is a tragic, inexplicable incident with a child in the hot car,” Jenkins told CTV News Toronto on Monday. “There is nothing but an outpouring of sympathy. That’s one of the things I don’t think anyone can imagine. “
“The whole community is shocked and confused.”
Everett was one of two children. His older brother is five years old, Jenkins said.
“They’re a great family, her husband is a volunteer at the fire department,” Jenkins said. “Their children are everything to them.”
Jenkins called on the community to have “compassion” for the family and acknowledged that Everett’s death would have “widespread consequences.”
He said he called on everyone to “support the family and support each other”.
“It was very traumatic,” he said.
North Hastings High School declined to comment. A spokesman for the Hastings and County School Board, Prince Edward, said in a statement that they were aware of the situation at the school but would not comment further.
A small flower monument was erected in front of the high school on Monday morning.
In a Facebook post last week, the school said it had canceled 8th grade graduation due to an “emergency situation at the school.”
Bancroft is about 100 miles north of Peterborough and 244 miles from Toronto.
The OPP said that the investigation into the death in cooperation with the Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario was ongoing.
Add Comment