A three-year-old boy died after his mum “forgot” he was in the back of her car and left him unattended for several hours in 27 degree heat to go to work.
The youngster is said to have been left alone in the vehicle for six hours before anyone realised.
The tragedy happened on Thursday in the municipality of O Porrino near the city of Pontevedra in Spain’s north-west Galician region.
The town hall announced overnight it was declaring three days of mourning and held a minute’s silence at midday on Friday.
A local festival was also suspended following the tragic news.
Local reports said the unnamed mum had “forgotten” to leave the youngster at his nursery school before going to work.
Son asleep in car
She is said to have parked her car on land around 10am on Thursday by her workplace in Torneiros, which is part of the municipality of O Porrino, and left her son asleep in a child seat in the back of the vehicle.
The alarm was raised around 4pm, with local reports saying the child’s dad had called her after going to the nursery school and discovering the youngster wasn’t there.
Emergency responders rushed to the scene but were unable to do anything to save his life and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
An autopsy will now take place to determine exactly when he died.
Local reports said he had been left with a jacket on because although day-time temperatures in the area had risen to around 27 degrees Celsius it had been chilly in the morning.
Civil Guard officers in Pontevedra could not be reached on Friday for comment on the case.
The child’s mum is understood to be receiving expert counselling.
In August 2018 a 10-month-old baby girl died in the Majorcan town of Manacor after her grandfather left her in the back of his car for eight hours in temperatures of up to 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) after forgetting to leave her at a nursery school.
He found her dead when he returned to the vehicle after running errands several hours later. The unnamed man later accepted a year’s prison sentence in March 2020.
