Young girl playing in car dies after power window rolls up on her, Arizona police say

A young girl died Saturday night when a power window rolled up on her as she played in a parked car during a family party, Arizona police said.

Phoenix police initially responded to reports of a crash in a West Valley neighborhood at 7:30 p.m., The Arizona Republic reported.

They instead found the girl had been playing inside a parked car when she became trapped by a rising power window, the newspaper reported. She was taken to a hospital but later died.

“It’s awful. It’s heart-wrenching,” police spokesman Andy Williams told KSAZ. “Little kids can get into anything and it just takes a moment for them to get into something that they shouldn’t and it just takes that moment where tragedy can strike.”

Police did not release the girl’s age or details on how she died, according to the station. The medical examiner’s office will determine her cause of death.

“People don’t understand the power that these windows go up,” Janette Fennell, president of national nonprofit Kids and Cars, told Arizona’s Family. “It has between 30 to 40 pounds of force and it takes 22 pounds of force to break the trachea.”

She urged parents not to leave children unattended in vehicles, according to the station.

This story was originally published October 4, 2021 at 1:48 PM with the headline "Young girl playing in car dies after power window rolls up on her, Arizona police say."