1-year-old girl dies after left in hot van outside Omaha day care center

OMAHA, Neb. — A 62-year-old man is accused of child abuse after a 1-year-old girl died after being left in a van outside a day care center in Omaha, Nebraska.

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Ryan D. Williams, the driver of the van, was arrested on Monday and charged in the death of Ra’Miyah Worthington, the Omaha World-Herald reported. He was booked into the Douglas County Jail after the child was found unresponsive in a van outside the Kidz of the Future Childcare in Omaha, according to the television station.

The van is owned by the day care center, according to an Omaha Police Department spokesperson.

“My baby did not come home. Her siblings did. She didn’t. How did y’all forget about her? Y’all picked all of ‘em up, took ‘em off the van. How did y’all forget my baby?” Sina Johnson, the child’s mother, said at a rally outside the day care center, KETV reported.

Members of the Omaha Fire Department were called to the scene shortly after 3 p.m. CDT and transported the child to the Nebraska Medical Center, the World-Herald reported. She was declared dead at the hospital,. according to the newspaper.

The temperature was 96 degrees when the child was found, according to National Weather Service data recorded at Eppley Airfield. The heat index was measured at 113 degrees, the World-Herald reported.

According to Douglas County court documents, the child had a temperature of 109 degrees when she arrived at the hospital, WOWT-TV reported.

“My baby suffered. She suffered,” Johnson told KETV.

Phone messages seeking comment left on the day care center’s voice mail service were not immediately returned, the World-Herald reported.

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services confirmed on Tuesday that state officials had issued an emergency order to shut down the day care center.

“The protection and well-being of children is of the highest priority by the Department of Health and Human Services, and we are working with law enforcement as they investigate this tragic death,” a spokesperson for the agency wrote in an email to the television station. In addition, an emergency order has been put in place temporarily closing the facility until further investigations can take place.”

According to Kids and Car Safety, Worthington’s death was the first in Nebraska this year and the 19th nationwide. According to the organization, four children in Nebraska have died from being left in hot cars since 1990.

“Approximately 87% of children who die in hot cars are age 3 or younger and the majority, 56%, were unknowingly left by an otherwise loving, responsible parent or caregiver,” Kids and Car Safety wrote in a news release. “Of the children who were unknowingly left, about 12% were left by a childcare provider.”