‘It feels like a nightmare’: Twin three-year-olds found dead in hot car after frantic search

It brings total number of child hot car deaths in America this year to nearly 50

(Screenshot WOTC)

Three-year-old twin girls have been found dead after being left in a hot car in Georgia.

Raelynn and Payton Keynes were found unresponsive in a vehicle in the backyard of a home in Hinesvile after a frantic search by their foster parents, authorities said.

The circumstances surrounding their deaths remain unclear, but the Hinesville Police Department said they were initially thought to be missing before their foster parents called 911.

A coroner’s report concluded the cause of death was heatstroke. Their deaths were ruled accidental.

Temperatures outside of the vehicle were around 92F (33C) when the children were found.

“It’s a nightmare. It feels like a giant nightmare,” the girls’ birth mother, Skye Keyes, said.

Ms Keyes told WTOC she last saw her daughters on Friday when she visited them with a caseworker.

The case marks the 46h and 47th deaths of children in hot cars this year, according to a tally by the advocacy group Kids and Cars.

Since the death of the twins, at least one other child has died in a hot car in Phoenix, Arizona.

Child hot car deaths are largely avoidable, according to advocates with Kids and Cars, and the tragedy could happen to anyone.

The group monitors hot car deaths and advocates for safety measures that could help reduce them, such as sensors in cars that notify parents when children are in a vehicle without an accompanying adult.

The summer saw at least one other pair of twins die in a hot car in New York City after a social worker said he forgot they were in his car as he went to work.

“This happens to all different types of people. People of all different ages. People of all different socioeconomic statuses, professions, races, ethnicities,” Amber Rowlins, director of Kids and Cars, told The Independent at the time.