A mum accused of leaving her one-year-old son to d!e in a sweltering 57C car for an hour and a half was attending a cosmetic appointment, according to police
Maya Hernandez, 20, left Amillio Gutierrez and his two-year-old brother, strapped in their car seats during scorching heat on June 29, while she attended a lip filler procedure in California.
Amillio was found foaming at the mouth, convulsing and unresponsive. He was rushed to hospital with a body temperature of 107C, but tragically died. His brother survived.
Hernandez told police she left the car running with the air conditioning on. However, investigators said the car was warm when they arrived. It also had an automatic feature that turns the engine off after an hour.
The brothers were estimated to have been left without any cold air for at least 90 minutes. Authorities were told by a nurse at the spa that Hernandez had asked in advance if she could bring her children to the lip filler appointment. However, she did not mention having them when she arrived for the procedure, which takes around 15-20 minutes, it was reported.
The boys’ grandmother, Katie Martinez, was left heartbroken to discover the boys were allegedly “locked in the car” and unable to save themselves.
“They were strapped in their car seats. They couldn’t even get up to save themselves,” Martinez claimed. “She literally locked them in their car seats and shut their doors.”
Martinez said she has sat in her own car with the windows up and the engine off to try to feel what her grandsons went through.
“If you just take 20 minutes out of your day and go in your car and feel how it feels, I think that’s the only thing that will teach you how to know what a kid feels,” she said.
The grandmother claimed it was out of character for Hernandez. She added: “(Maya) wasn’t like that. She was a really loving mum. Those boys loved her. They really loved her and they relied on her.”
Martinez, who set up GoFundMe to help pay for the one-year-old’s funeral, also organised a vigil for her grandson to honour his memory.
“I have been tortured by the thought that they were in there alone. And that when they were found, the ambulance and paramedics just snatched them up and started working on them,” she said. “It was just a horrible experience.”
“He had his whole life ahead of him,” relative Isaac Tamez said. “Just don’t leave the kids in the car.”
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