‘Screaming in anguish’: Mum collapses to ground after toddler dies in hot car

Harrowing video caught the moment a woman collapsed to the ground after learning her two-year-old daughter had died after being left in the family’s hot car.

Harrowing video caught the moment a mother collapsed to the ground after learning her two-year-old daughter had died after being left in the family’s car for hours in 32C heat.

A WABC news chopper filmed the unidentified mum on the ground outside her home in New Jersey on Tuesday — soon after a neighbour said she heard her “screaming in pain and anguish”.

A cop bends down to try to console her, with the footage showing them rocking side to side while embracing tightly, the New York Post reports.

The mum was so distraught, she was eventually taken away in an ambulance, neighbours told NBC New York.

The child’s parents had both been unaware that their toddler had been left in the hot car until cops knocked on their door, neighbours told NBC New York.

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The unidentified mum was hugged by a cop after collapsing outside her Franklin Township home Tuesday. WABC-TV

The screaming mum was so distraught, she was taken away in an ambulance, neighbours told NBC New York. WABC-TV

“They were just screaming in pain and anguish,” neighbour Treana Huntley recalled to WABC.

“I heard the dad screaming uncontrollably and then I heard the mum start wailing, really sobbing,” Huntley said.

“It was gut-wrenching … Just hearing that pain from another mother,” she said. “I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”

The toddler was found in a car seat in the back of the gray Honda Civic just after 2.20pm on Tuesday, officials said.

“It was gut-wrenching”: Neighbour Treana Huntley recalled hearing the parents “screaming in pain and anguish.” Picture: WABC-TV.

One of the first neighbours on the scene was a local firefighter who attempted CPR, but the girl was pronounced dead at the scene, officials said.

The Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office said that “further investigation is ongoing to determine the exact length of time the child was in the vehicle, and the circumstances surrounding the events leading to this incident.”

However, sources told NBC New York that the toddler appears to have been left in the car more than seven hours.

It was not clear where the parents thought the child was at the time, the outlet noted.

The 2-year-old girl may have been left in the car seat for more than seven hours as temps hit 32.2C, sources told NBC New York.

The temperature at nearby Somerset Airport at 2pm, just before the dead girl was found, was 32.2C, according to the National Weather Service.

It is already being listed as the 22nd hot-car death so far this year in a heartbreaking tally kept by the organisation Kids and Car Safety.

“This is the kind of tragedy that doesn’t discriminate. It has to do with a failure of the brain’s memory, in many cases,” the group’s Sue Auriemma told NBC New York.

“Unfortunately the worst mistake a parent can make is thinking this can’t happen to them.”

This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was reproduced with permission