Baby dies after being left in van at Omaha day care in 110-degree heat: cops
A 1-year-old girl was found dead after she was left inside a van at an Omaha day care center on one of the hottest days of the year — and the driver was arrested in connection with the tot’s tragic death, police said.
Officers and medics were called around 3 p.m. Monday to Kidz of the Future Childcare in Omaha for an unresponsive baby inside the sweltering van, police said.
It was not immediately known how long the youngster — identified by her family as Ra’Miyah Worthington — had spent inside the vehicle, but her parents suspect it must have been hours.
“I’m not comprehending how this could have even possibly happened,” baby Ra’Miyah’s devastated dad, Reeyon Worthington, told the station WOWT.
The call came as temperatures soared into the upper 90s and the heat index reached a sweltering 110 degrees — part of a heat wave scorching the Central US.
Ra’Miyah was rushed to Nebraska Medicine but could not be saved, police said.
The girl’s parents told the station that Ra’Miyah’s body temperature at the hospital was 109 degrees, and there was nothing the doctors could do to revive her.
On Tuesday, police arrested the driver of the van, Ryan Williams, 62, charging him with child negligence resulting in death.
Reeyon Worthington and his wife, Sina Johnson Worthington, said they have been taking their children to the Kidz of the Future Childcare center for five years.
Early Monday morning, Williams picked up Ra’Miyah and two of her siblings in the silver van and drove them to the day care.
The other two children were removed from the van, but the 1-year-old was left behind.
“How do you forget one when you take two off the van?” Johnson Worthington wondered aloud through sobs. “How did you forget my baby?”
Ra’Miyah was the youngest of six children. Her parents said she loved to eat and dance, and always wore a smile on her face.
“She loved, loved, loved her family,” said her mom. “She loved her daddy. She was daddy’s little girl.”
On Tuesday, some 30 people staged a protest outside the day care on Leavenworth Street, carrying pink signs bearing Ra’Miyah’s name and demanding justice for the toddler.
“Somebody needs to be locked up for this,” Worthington said.
