Sandra Hernandez (left) has been arrested in connection with the death of her daughter Ily Elizabeth Ruiz (right) who was found dead in a hot car (Pictures: Orange County Sheriff’s Department)
A three-year-old girl was found dead in the back seat of a hot car while her mother was allegedly drunk and passed out at the wheel.
Ily Elizabeth Ruiz was discovered by a family member locked inside a Ford Expedition unconscious around 4.20pm on Friday when it was roughly 104 degrees Fahrenheit in Anaheim, California, police said.
The family member managed to get Ily out of the vehicle, which also had her mother, Sandra Hernandez, 41, unresponsive in the front.
Police and fire officials responded to the 1300 block of North Fashion Lane for a medical emergency and Ily was rushed to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Ily Elizabeth Ruiz was found unconscious in a hot car in Anaheim, California (Picture: Juan Ruiz)
Multiple bottles of alcohol were recovered from inside the SUV, police Sgt Matt Sutter told KABC.
Hernandez was medically cleared at the hospital and arrested and booked into jail on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter and child neglect.
‘ILY was such a beautiful and innocent soul with a very loving and bubbly personality. It’s still hard to wrap our minds around the thought ILY is no longer with us,’ wrote Nancy Salamanca, the cousin of Ily’s father, Juan Ruiz, in a GoFundMe page for her funeral expenses.
‘She has been tragically taken from our family in such an unfathomable way, and all we want to do is ease the burden and pain her father Juan and the family are going through at this time.’
Sandra Hernandez (top) was suffering from depression and post-partum depression, according to her deceased daughter’s father (Picture: Juan Ruiz)
Ily’s preliminary cause of death, pending her official autopsy results, was complications related to heat stroke.
Southern California was experiencing a heatwave at the time that the daughter and mother were found.
‘This should have never happened to his innocent little girl. It is so overwhelmingly painful to hear the accounts of what occurred,’ Salamanca wrote.
‘It’s been unbearable and hard to wrap our minds around. We have to unite behind Juan and the family.’
Ily Elizabeth Ruiz died after she was found unconscious in a hot car (Picture: Facebook/Derek Reed)
Ily’s father called her ‘my princess’ and that the mother was suffering from depression and post-partum depression.
‘I’m hurt, I’m broken, I’m devastated,’ the tearful dad told NBC Los Angeles. Ruiz ‘I’m angry, I’m very angry. That’s what I feel right now.’
It is not the first alcohol-linked tragedy that has befallen the family.
In 2012, Ruiz’s older sons Alaries, 5, and Cyris, 9, were killed by a drunk driver who ran over their tent while they were camping in North Dakota.
Sandra Hernandez has been booked into jail on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter and child neglect (Picture: Orange County Sheriff’s Department)
‘To know that he’s reliving this all over again, we’re just hurting for him,’ Salamanca said.
Her husband, Waleed Salimi, said the father has one son left.
‘He has one thing – one thing left for himself and that’s his son Lazarus,’ he said.
‘So he’s going to fight hard for his son, as we’re here to support him as a family.’
The GoFundMe page had raised more than $15,000 as of Wednesday afternoon.
Anyone with information on the incident, which remains under investigation, is urged to contact the Anaheim Police Department.
Ily died a day after twin two-year-old girls were found dead in a hot car after a relative allegedly forgot to drop them off at a daycare center in Oklahoma.
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