Kingsland police identify mother of 7-month-old infant in hot car death

The Kingsland Police Department is working to uncover what circumstances led to the death of a 7-month-old, inside a hot car.

The Camden County coroner says their medical examiner at their Coastal Region Medical Examiner’s Office in Savannah, determined the baby died from hyperthermia.

Hyperthermia is a condition that happens when your body’s heat-regulation system becomes overwhelmed.

When you experience hyperthermia, your body will have a temperature of more than 104 degrees, Fahrenheit.

As of Wednesday police say no one is in custody.

Action News Jax broke the news of the tragic death Tuesday afternoon and spoke to the man who tried to save the baby.

Kingsland P.D. sent Action News Jax reporter Courtney Cole the police report for the incident, around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The mother of the infant is being identified as Rhae Ellen Odum.

Inside the report, the officer says as he began to take over CPR for the child, he noticed there was blood on the baby’s face and his skin was hot to the touch.

He also noticed the infant’s hands were fully clenched, his palms were blue, there were other areas on his body that appeared were blue and red and his body was very stiff.

“I’m thinking, somebody just lost their life and I didn’t know anything about it, I would have done something,” said Christina Bell who's staying at the Quality Inn on Robert L. Edenfield Drive.

That’s where Kingsland police officers responded to a call on Tuesday afternoon  for the report of an infant not breathing.

The 7-month old was found inside of a hot car.

"It just breaks my heart, because so many babies are dying now like that,” Bell told Action News Jax.

While this is the first hot car death in Georgia in 2018, according to KidsandCars.org, at least 36 children, ages 14 years and younger, have died  in the PeachSstate between 1990-2017.

The number of hot car deaths in Florida, during the same time span, is more than double that number.

Action News Jax reporter Courtney Cole took a closer look at the laws in both states and learned that in Georgia, there is no specific law that deals with leaving a child, under a certain age, unattended in a car.

Instead, these cases are handled based on existing laws and circumstances of the case.

But in Florida, it's a different story.

A parent or legal guardian cannot leave a child under the age of 6 unattended or unsupervised for more than 15 minutes -- without facing a possible charge or fine.

Although we don’t know the circumstances involved in the 7-month-old’s death in Kingsland, many of the children who die in hot cars were left there by accident.

That's where a company called Cybex comes into play.

Cybex created the only smartphone-synced convertible car seat on the market.

It integrates safety technology via Bluetooth into the chest clip of the car seat.

If the caregiver walks away and forgets about the child, an alert is sent to that person’s cellphone.

Emergency contacts are notified if the user doesn't acknowledge the alert.

The Cybex car seat runs about $330.

Cox Media Group