NORMAN — Police are investigating after the bodies of two toddlers were found Thursday afternoon inside a car not far from an elementary school and just a few blocks from the University of Oklahoma.
About 3 p.m. Thursday, officers with the Norman Police Department responded to a welfare check request for a car stopped in the 1000 block of W Brooks Street. Police said the bodies of two 2-year-old children were inside the car, according to a news release from the department.
No other details about the children have been officially released. Norman police agreed Friday to share an incident report with The Oklahoman, but reporters did not receive a copy of it by press time.
According to police, investigators believe the children had been accidentally left in the car "for an extended period of time" before later being found by family. The medical examiner is expected to determine the official cause of death.
'We can't believe something happened so close. It's a shame'
The toddlers' bodies were found in what local resident Andrew Kabara described as a quiet neighborhood, where people know one another well. He said he isn't familiar with the children who died and is awaiting more word on what happened.
He said he's grown accustomed to seeing many cars regularly parked on the street, typically because of parents dropping off children at McKinley Elementary School nearby or older students attending the OU campus just blocks away.
"We pay attention to most of them," Kabara said, as evidenced by the "neighborhood watch" warning sign on the same street. "This is a close-knit neighborhood, and we want to know who's coming through here and all of that, but never thought something like this."
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Kabara said that once he saw several squad cars suddenly pull up across the street from his house Thursday, he became worried.
"We feel for the children who passed and their parents and the rest of their family," Kabara said. "We can't imagine. After we heard it (Friday) morning, our hearts just broke that they were just two little kids across the street from us. That just broke our hearts. We can't believe something happened so close. It's a shame."
A small bundle of flowers was laid on the lawn along the sidewalk where the bodies were found. The exact circumstances of the children's deaths is still under active investigation, but Kabara said he hopes it would reveal "a tragic mistake" and not something worse.
Officials warn that young children's vulnerability to heatstroke is still high , even as cooler temperatures arrive with the coming autumn months.
Medical professionals with the Emergency Medical Services Authority provided tips on how to avoid car heatstrokes . They recommended adults should make it a habit to open the back door every time they get out of their car to make sure no children are left inside. They also recommended keeping an essential item, like a purse or a key fob, in the back seat to enforce this habit.
"Even though the temperatures are getting a little lower, the vehicle can still get very hot very quick," a spokeswoman for EMSA said . "Even on a day like (Friday), you can get up to 150 degrees in a car. Do everything you can to avoid the extreme heat."
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Police investigating after two children found dead inside a vehicle Thursday in Norman
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