Girl, 5, dies of suffocation inside grandmother’s car in Umm Al Quwain

Umm Al Quwain: A five-year-old Emirati girl died on Friday evening after her grandmother forgot her in the car for almost two hours while she was visiting one of her friends in Umm Al Quwain, Colonel Khamis Salem Buharoon, Director of Umm Al Quwain Police, said.

The incident happened in front of the house of the grandmother’s friend in Umm Al Quwain.

The child was buried at the Umm Al Quwain graveyard at 10:30pm, Buharoon said.

The grandmother went to visit her friend with three of her grandchildren, including the dead.The other two children asked the permission of their grandmother to go and buy some stuff from the nearest supermarket. The grandmother thought that the girl went with them and locked the car and went inside her friend’s house, Buharoon said.

The children returned and told the grandmother that the five-year-old girl was sleeping inside the car; immediately they rushed to the car to find the girl motionless; the child was pronounced dead at the site, Buharoon said.

"The child suffocated due to the high temperature inside the car,” Buharoon said. Police have ruled out foul play in the incident.

Buharoon urged all guardians to be careful during summer and not to leave their wards inside vehicles.

This is the second incident of the same kind in less than a week in the UAE. On July 2, a three-year-old Emirati boy died after his family forgot him in the car for almost four hours in front of their house in Kalba.