Friday, Aug. 26, 2005 | 11:09 a.m.
Just hours before his 17-month-old daughter Brianna was pulled unconscious and barely breathing from a hot parked car Thursday, Teofilo Rodriguez had been helping the toddler walk in their northeast Las Vegas front yard, neighbors said.
The child's two older sisters and mother watched, a neighbor said. Maria Rodriguez, 9 months pregnant, was weeping with joy as she watched her youngest daughter happily tottering around on the grass, Eliezer Galindo's daughter said.
As Galindo watched the police investigation at the home in the 3700 block of Rochester Avenue Thursday afternoon, she said, "I can't believe it. They are such good people."
About 1:20 p.m. Thursday, the Rodriguez family called 911 because Brianna was unconscious and barely breathing after being discovered in the back of the family's white Nissan Stanza, authorities said.
Apparently Teo Rodriguez had either not realized she was in the car or had forgotten she was in the car as he drove to a friend's house during a span of about two hours, authorities said.
The temperature during that time was around 99 degrees, with 21 percent relative humidity, said Brian Fuis, spokesman for the National Weather Service in Las Vegas.
Metro Police are estimating that the temperature inside the Rodriguez car had risen to about 137 degrees while Brianna was left inside it.
"She was not doing well when we got there" to the Rodriguezes' home in the Sunrise Manor neighborhood, said Bob Leinbach, spokesman of the Clark County Fire Department.
Brianna, who will be 1 1/2 years old on Wednesday, was initially taken to North Vista Hospital, which is the closest hospital to the family's home, but she was later transferred to Sunrise Hospital because Sunrise is better equipped to care for the most critically injured children.
Brianna remained in critical but stable condition this morning, Lisa Teele, supervisor of Metro's Abuse and Neglect Detail, said.
Teele said police would submit the results of their investigation to the district attorney's office for a decision as to whether to press any charges against Teo Rodriguez.
Neighbors describe Teo Rodriguez as a doting father.
"I think this is just an unfortunate, tragic accident," said Ann Remington, who was helping her friend James Curl move from his home on Rochester Thursday. "They are a very, very nice family, a very respected family."
Galindo said the Rodriguez family includes two sisters, ages 12 and 7, and they live at the one-story, 1,163-square-foot home with another family.
Bumper stickers on the Rodriguez car proclaim: "Proud parent of a superstar at Woolley Elementary School" and "My child was a student of the month at Clyde C. Cox Elementary School."
As a small crowd gathered to watch the police cars and TV news vans surrounding the home near Pecos and Gowan roads Thursday afternoon, one of the observers, Carol Rankin, shook her head in disbelief.
"How can you forget about a baby?" asked Rankin, a 46-year-old lifelong Las Vegan who was visiting her sister in the neighborhood.
"With a baby, you have to either feed it or keep it dry and even if it is sleeping, you're checking on it every 15 minutes," said Rankin, a mother of three grown children and grandmother of six.
Since 2001 seven children have died in Southern Nevada after being left alone in cars during the hotter months of the year.
Since Jan. 1 there have been 66 cases of children left inside vehicles, "which is far too many," Teele said.
"My cry to the community is that we don't leave our children in vehicles," Teele said.
On July 8, 16-month-old Jozia Diaz-Beltran's father left her in his sport utility vehicle when he parked it outside a relative's home in the 400 block of Frederick Avenue near Alexander Road and D Street. The outside temperature was 105 degrees. Three hours later, when Jozia was taken out of the SUV, she was dead.
District Attorney David Roger's office has yet to announce whether Jozia's father will be charged in connection with her death.
A baby, child or pet begins to suffer the symptoms of heat stroke -- weakness, disorientation, muscle cramps -- once the body's core temperature reaches 104 degrees, said Jan Null, an adjunct meteorology professor at San Francisco State University, who tracks such incidents nationwide.
By the time the body's temperature hits 107 degrees, cells are so hot they begin to die, he said. Infants and children heat up three times to five times faster than adults, he said.
Because of the public outcry over children being left in cars and the controversy over some parents being charged in some cases while others were not charged with anything, a new state law was approved during the last legislative session that will allow parents to be charged with at least a misdemeanor for leaving young children alone in a vehicle.
Senate Bill 287 makes it a misdemeanor to leave a child 7 or younger unsupervised in a vehicle if the weather and other factors "present a significant risk to health and safety" of the child or if the engine is running or the keys are in the ignition.
As long as there is someone older than 11 to supervise the younger child in the vehicle, there would be no violation of the new law.
The measure also gives the court the authority to suspend the misdemeanor penalty if a person cited for the offense takes an educational course on the dangers of leaving a child unattended. It also provides law enforcement officers protection from lawsuits regarding removal of children from vehicles.
The new law doesn't take effect until Oct. 1. Sen. Valerie Weiner, D-Las Vegas, the chief sponsor of the bill, said Oct. 1 was used as the effective date for the new law because that is the date that new laws usually take effect in Nevada and also because that allows enough time to bring law enforcement officers up to date on the new law.
But even if it had already been in effect, the new law would not have been applicable in the Rodriguez case because the law won't be applied in cases where the child is injured or dies, authorities said. When a child is injured or dies as a result of being left in a vehicle, then the case is elevated to another level.
Authorities have just two choices in that type of case: Rule it an accident and take no action or charge a responsible person with gross misdemeanor or felony child endangerment or abuse and neglect.
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