Toddler suffocates between car seat and door while mom ran errand, Michigan officials say
A Michigan woman returned from a quick errand to find her daughter fatally wedged between the driver seat and door of her truck, and now she’s charged in the girl’s death, officials said.
Nearly four months after her daughter’s death in October, the 27-year-old mother is charged with child abuse — leaving a child in a vehicle resulting in death, according to records filed Jan. 30 in Kent County.
No attorney information was available for the mother.
The woman says what happened to her 18-month-old daughter was a terrible accident, WOOD reported.
“Yes, I could have done things differently that day. But I’ve learned from my mistakes. If I could go back in time to change things, I would, but I can’t,” she told the TV station in an interview.
Grand Rapids police responded to a call for help just after noon on Oct. 9 at a grocery store on the city’s south side, according to a probable cause affidavit.
The mother told police she had gone to the store to buy lunch for her husband and had left her daughter and three other young children in her pickup truck while she went inside, documents said. The errand only took about 15 minutes, police said after reviewing security camera video, but it was long enough for a fatal accident to unfold.
When the woman came back and began loading the groceries into the truck, one of the children caught her attention and was pointing at something.
She looked and saw her daughter’s hair “sticking out onto the front driver’s seat,” investigators said. The girl’s head was stuck between the seat and the driver’s side door.
The mom rushed to the other side of the truck, opened the door and her daughter fell onto the ground, motionless, officials said. She scooped the girl into her arms and ran into the store asking someone to call 911.
First responders arrived at the scene and attempted life-saving measures before taking the girl to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead less than an hour later at 1:02 p.m.
Investigators believe the child had “fallen backwards and her head (and) neck was caught between the driver’s seat and the door,” causing her to suffocate.
Her cause of death was ruled “accidental asphyxiation via wedge,” officials said.
The girl was not in a car seat and investigators say that, coupled with being left alone without any supervision created “an unreasonable risk of harm or injury,” leading to her death.
If convicted, the mother could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.
This story was originally published February 12, 2025 at 3:23 PM with the headline "Toddler suffocates between car seat and door while mom ran errand, Michigan officials say."