John Jefferson
Left inset: Juan Ruiz (Facebook). Right inset: Ily Ruiz (GoFundMe). Main: the Ford Expedition where the 3-year-old was found locked inside and unconscious (KABC).
A Texas father who has endured unimaginable heartbreak is begging for help and slamming the “negligence” of his 3-year-old daughter’s mother after the girl was allegedly locked inside an SUV on a day with 100-degree temperatures in California and lost her life due to suspected “heat stroke.”
The victim, identified by grieving family as Ily Ruiz, and her mother, 41-year-old Sandra Hernandez, were both “unconscious” in a parked Ford Expedition in Anaheim last Friday afternoon, when temperatures may have run as high as 104 degrees, the Anaheim Police Department said Monday.
According to investigators, one of Ily’s family members saw her in the locked vehicle and got her out of the SUV, but by then it was already too late to save her.
“On Friday, September 6, 2024, at around 4:20 p.m., Anaheim Police officers and Anaheim Fire & Rescue personnel responded to a medical emergency in the 1300 block of N. Fashion Lane. Upon arrival, they discovered an unconscious 3-year-old girl who had been removed from a parked vehicle by a family member,” cops said. “Life-saving measures were immediately performed before she was transported to a hospital for further treatment. An unconscious adult female was also found in the same vehicle and transported to the hospital.”
“Tragically,” authorities said, “the 3-year-old was later pronounced dead at the hospital, with the preliminary cause of death suspected to be complications from heat stroke, though the official autopsy report is still pending.”
Police said that both the girl and her mother were in the SUV for “an unknown period of time,” that the child was in Hernandez’s care at the time, and that there were “several empty alcohol bottles” inside the sweltering vehicle.
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NBC affiliate KNBC reported, citing the mother’s great-aunt, that Hernandez and Ruiz may have been in the car waiting to go and pick up another child from school, but that never happened.
Unlike her daughter, Hernandez survived and cops grilled her at the hospital about what took place.
While cops have not yet said what, if anything, Hernandez told them, she was subsequently accused of involuntary manslaughter and child neglect, two felony crimes, and was booked into jail after her release from the hospital.
Juan Ruiz, Ily’s father and the father of a 5-year-old boy, was visibly distraught in a video he posted on Facebook after learning of his daughter’s death.
“I wish I was making this up, but no, my daughter really is dead due to the negligence of her mother,” he said. “Right now, my 5-year-old son is with his aunt. She’s got a temporary placement for him. I’ve got to go to court on the 11th to see if the state will give me my son back because I all I have left… is my dog right here.”
“I need help,” he pleaded.
Adding to the tragedy, KABC reported that Ruiz’s 5-year-old and 9-year-old sons were killed 12 years ago while on a camping trip, when “a drunk driver ran over their tent.”
Family alluded to the shocking history of “loss” and heartbreak in a GoFundMe campaign, revealing that Ruiz is in Texas and will need to get a new job in California to “take care of his remaining son” after the death of his “precious little girl.”
“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. 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,” the family said.
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