Toddler died after being left in hot car for hours, Georgia officials say

COLUMBUS, Ga. – A 3-year-old was left sitting in a hot car for hours before family members found him dead in the backseat.

ABC News reports Kendrick Engram Jr. was with his grandmother and three sisters when they got home around 5:30 p.m. Sunday, but he never made it inside. Investigators suspect the boy spent a little under three hours in the car before relatives realized what happened.

“Everyone went in the house except the little boy,” Muscogee County Coroner Buddy Bryan said. “The grandmother went into the bedroom, the other children went into the kitchen area to eat. Then the children were in and out, playing… just like kids do.”

Kendrick’s grandmother took a headcount around 8:15 p.m. and noticed the toddler was nowhere to be found. Around that same time, her son—the boy’s uncle—was borrowing her car so he could drive to a nearby Wendy’s.

The child’s uncle was inside the restaurant when he got a call from the grandmother asking if he had the boy. Once she asked him to check the vehicle, he found Kendrick unresponsive in the backseat.

The coroner’s office said it planned to rule the death heat-related.

It marks the seventh hot car death of a child reported in the U.S. this year, according to ABC News.