Family Who Lost Older Kids to DUI Loses Toddler in Hot Car

California girl's mother has been charged with leaving her in vehicle, where she died
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 11, 2024 7:03 AM CDT
Family Who Lost Older Kids to DUI Loses Toddler in Hot Car
Stock photo.   (Getty Images / itsarasak thithuekthak)

A 3-year-old southern California girl died in a hot car outside her family's Orange County apartment complex amid 104-degree temperatures Friday, and her mother is charged in the toddler's death. Making the tragedy even more unimaginable: The girl's brothers were killed at ages 5 and 9 in 2012 when a drunk driver ran over their tent at a campground in North Dakota. Their father, Juan Ruiz, was also injured in that incident. He and wife Sandra Hernandez-Cazares went on to become advocates for harsher DUI penalties—and to have more children, including Ily Ruiz, who died Friday, CBS News reports. Family members were alerted to the emergency when staff from the girl's 5-year-old brother's school called to say no one had picked up the boy, and relatives went to the Anaheim home to find the toddler and her mother unconscious inside the family SUV.

Authorities believe Ily Ruiz had been dead for hours before she was found, NBC News reports. Her mother was hospitalized, and authorities say her BAC was found to be .30, nearly quadruple the legal limit for driving. Empty alcohol bottles were allegedly found in the vehicle. She has been charged with one count of involuntary manslaughter and one count of child abuse causing great bodily injury. "The unimaginable pain of having your 5-year-old and 9-year-old sons killed by a drunk driver is something from which you can never recover," the DA says in a statement. "A mother who was robbed of the chance to see two of her sons grow up because of the selfish decision of a stranger will have to live with the fact she will never get to see her little girl grow up because of the choices she made." (More child dies in hot car stories.)

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