Baby dies after being abandoned in a hot car for an entire day. Dad tells what happened

An unnamed man forgot his baby in the car as he went to work. According to reports, the man was supposed to take the child to daycare.

When he finally realized his mistake, the child had been in the car the whole day through scorching temperatures. The incident occurred on April 3, 2018, according to ABC News.

North Charleston, South Carolina police are currently investigating the death of a baby boy who was left in a hot car all day on Tuesday. On that day the temperature reached 85 degrees; 11 degrees above normal.

The baby's father told authorities that he had left his home that morning and was supposed to drop his son off at daycare. But he forgot to and drove to work instead.

The man's wife arrived at the daycare that evening and learned that her baby, who was 10 months old, wasn't there. She contacted her husband, who then checked his car and found the infant inside and unresponsive.

The father took the baby to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The coroner's office is still investigating the cause and manner of death.

David Diamond, a professor of psychology, molecular pharmacology and physiology at the University of South Florida, said that scientific studies of the brain have proven that Forgotten Baby Syndrome does exist.

"It's where the parent completely loses awareness that the child is in the car. It's our brain habit system.”

Professor David Diamond, ABC News, April 5, 2018

Diamond told ABC News in 2016 that the syndrome allowed people to do things without thinking about them. “That plan we have to stop a habit seems to get suppressed. We lose awareness of our plan to interrupt that habit,” he said.

Diamond claimed that the different brain systems competed against each other. He explained that when there was competition between the brain’s "habit memory system" and its "prospective memory system" and the habit memory system takes over, then Forgotten Baby Syndrome could occur.

Under circumstances of sleep deprivation or stress, parents could default to repetitive actions according to the Professor. For example, a routine drive from home to work, instead of home to daycare, would be performed automatically.

He stated that one sort of goes into autopilot mode. But Forgotten Baby Syndrome has also been used as an excuse before.

In 2016, Justin Ross Harris was convicted of the murder of his 22-month-old son, Cooper. The boy died after he was left in Harris' hot car in Georgia for about seven hours.

Harris' attorneys argued at the time that Cooper's death was an accident and that Harris had failed to take him to daycare and left the boy in the car. But prosecutors said the father had purposefully left the boy in the car so he could escape his family and his responsibilities.