Thursday, September 2, 2010

A four-year-old boy has died after climbing into the boot of the family car and becoming trapped. After realising her son was missing from the family home, his desperate mother drove around the Al Basrah area of Al Ain for 90 minutes looking for him unaware he was dying in the back of the car. His mother, a primary school teacher, eventually found him in the boot of the car and took him to hospital.

Despite frantic efforts to revive him, Usama Al Najar was pronounced dead in hospital. A doctor at Al Ain Hospital said: “We saw a speeding car reach the hospital and a mother got out holding her baby, crying and pleading for help. She was yelling and crying. Her child’s heart had stopped. It was a tragic scene.”

The youngster’s father told an Arabic newspaper that his wife had been shopping and when she returned home had forgotten to close the car’s boot. She had lunch with her three children and fell asleep at around 3pm. He said: “While my wife was asleep my son sneaked out and was trying to grab a bag from the boot when he jumped inside and it shut and locked him in.” He told the paper that his wife woke at 5pm and searched for her son. He said she drove around for 90 minutes unaware that the child was stuck in the back of the vehicle.

Eventually she searched the car and found the boy who was still conscious. However, by the time she reached hospital he had died. Medical staff said the child died from suffocation.

A doctor said: “The father arrived at the hospital and collapsed beside the body of his son. He then kissed him on the head and wept.”