Two toddlers are dead after being found inside the same parked car, several hours apart, in a central Queensland town.
Queensland police said they were investigating “the sudden deaths” of the two boys, aged two and three, after they were discovered in a car parked in the back yard of a Woorabinda home on Friday night.
The boys were not brothers, but were related, police said. One was a Woorabinda resident, while the other was visiting the town, which has a population of about 1,000 people.
Police said there were family members inside the house at the time of the discovery.
According to police, residents had initially only seen the two-year-old boy.
“The first child was sitting on the rear seat in view, so [he] was taken to the hospital. However, unfortunately, the second [boy] wasn’t identified at that time,” Supt Darrin Shadlow said on Saturday.
“It appears to be an absolute tragic incident. We’ll conduct an investigation thoroughly and investigate everything in relation to it and we’ll get to a conclusion.”
The two-year-old was taken to the Woorabinda hospital just before 8pm (AEST), where health workers unsuccessfully attempted to revive him before he was pronounced dead, authorities said.
Police said they then attended the address and subsequently found the three-year-old boy in the same car at 9.15pm.
“The second child was laying down in the rear footwell of the vehicle and wasn’t seen by the residents when they located the first child,” Shadlow said.
“Police were with paramedics [and] CPR was commenced. However, unfortunately, that child was also deceased.”
He said police were investigating why the children were in the vehicle and a crime scene has been declared.
Shadlow said it was unclear why the kids were in the car. He said they hadn’t travelled in it as it wasn’t in use.
“There was no electronics for the windows or anything like that,” he said.
“It would appear from early investigations that there was heat-related stress.”
However, he cautioned this was not confirmed, and that a postmortem examination would be conducted.
The Indigenous community is located about 170km south-west of Rockhampton.
