Tragedy: 2-year-old dies in Florida car due to father's forgetfulness

A two-year-old boy died Monday from heat stroke after being left "for hours" in a car in Port St. Lucie, Florida, due to an alleged oversight by his father, who has since been arrested.

Port St. Lucie police reported that the boy's father, James Midele, 37, called emergency services after realizing after several hours that he had forgotten to take his son out of the car when he got home, Florida Treasure Coast media outlet TC Palm reported Tuesday.

Port St. Lucie police arrived at the 1700 block of Southeast Aires Lane at 1:17 p.m. to respond to a report that a child was left in a vehicle for several hours, police stated. 

The first responders who arrived at the house initiated life-saving and resuscitation measures before transporting the child to a hospital, where he later died, according to police. 

Midele told police he and his girlfriend were sharing one vehicle to take five children to school, according to a police affidavit. He said they left about 6:30 a.m. and dropped several of the children off.

He was supposed to drop the two-year-old off after other children, but instead went home at 8:10 a.m. according to recovered video footage.

He later came back to the car to get the child from the SUV after 1 p.m.

Not knowing what to do when saw the toddler had died, he began frantically pacing and then his girlfriend and then called police. 

Police said records indicated Midele called his girlfriend at 1:12 p.m. to tell her what happened.

Four minutes later he called 911 and was advised to remove the child from the vehicle and perform CPR.

“On the 911 recording, James tells dispatch that he forgot his son in the vehicle,” the affidavit states. “He also kept repeating that his son was dead.”

"This is a very unfortunate and tragic incident," police said.

Midele was arrested for the crime of leaving a child unattended in a vehicle on the same day that record temperatures were recorded in the state, causing serious bodily harm to the child.

The temperature reached 91 degrees Fahrenheit at Miami International Airport (MIA), a mark which surpassed a record set on March 6, 1965.

Authorities said the crime was a felony, and Midele was held on $2,500 bond.