A witness has detailed the harrowing moment a distraught dad realised that his three-year-old son had died after being left in a hot car for about six hours – as the little boy’s smiling last photos emerge.
Arikh Hasan, three, was found in the back of a Toyota Corolla on Railway Parade at Glenfield, in Sydney‘s southwest, about 3pm on Thursday as temperatures soared to 34c.
The car’s internal temperatures would have reached deadly levels within 20 minutes.
Arikh’s father, Newaz Hasan, had dropped Arikh’s older brother, eight, to Glenfield Public School in the morning, but told eyewitness Mujammel Hossain ‘I just forgot, I just forgot’ to drop his sleeping youngest child to childcare.
Mr Hasan found Arikh’s body in the car about 3pm, while returning to pick up his oldest child from school.
Mr Hossain was on his way to the local school to collect his daughter when he stumbled across the distraught dad.
‘He was screaming and his (oldest) son was crying,’ said Mr Hossain. ‘I told him to call an ambulance but he couldn’t talk on the phone so I spoke to Triple Zero .
‘He took the boy out of the car and took him inside the bottle shop. The father did CPR so many times but there was no response.’
Mr Hossain said he could tell immediately by Arikh’s condition that he had already died. He was extremely hot with ‘no pulse’.
When paramedics arrived to take the little boy to hospital, Mr Hossain said the child’s devastated father told him “he’s not going to be ok”.
Mr Hossain said Mr Hasan later told him he was doing the drop off when he noticed that Arikh was asleep in the back of the car.
He decided to get petrol first before doing the drop off – but forgot, and instead went straight home.
‘He kept telling me: “I just forgot, I just forgot”,’ Mr Hossain said.
Despite initial reports Mr Hasan had to break the glass to get Arikh out of the car, Mr Hossain insisted the father discovered the boy when he opened the door to let his older son in.
Mr Hossain said the ‘hysterical’ father then banged the glass window in panic.
Daily Mail Australia understands the family migrated to Australia from Bangladesh and both Arikh’s parents work in the banking industry.
Mr Hasan’s Facebook profile is filled with loving photos of him alongside his wife and two young boys.
The pictures show the doting dad holding the boys in his arms or cradling them on his lap as family-of-four enjoyed outings to the beach, parks and events.
The last photo, shared inn early December, shows Mr Hasan smiling as he posed alongside his family in traditional Bangladeshi garments.
Mr Hasan appeared to be bursting with pride as he rested his hand on the top of a chair as the two boys sat nestled in the seat below.
Detectives are investigating the matter. Mr Hasan was taken to Campbelltown Police Station and questioned by police but has since been released without charge.
‘Officers from Campbelltown City Police Area Command were told the child had been in the vehicle throughout the day,’ a NSW Police spokesperson said.
Local Ezzat Hanslo told Daily Mail Australia he was jumping into a taxi on Railway Parade about 9am on Thursday when he saw the father enter a store.
‘He then walked out and stopped a few metres away from the car, then stood and looked out and went back in,’ Mr Hanslo said.
‘I said to the taxi driver “there’s a kid in that car” and I figured he’d go to the car and get the kid and then we drove off.”
Mr Hanslo said he visits the area most mornings and there is not a lot of traffic. ‘By the end of the day it was the only car parked here,’ he said.
‘It’s so sad, I feel sick.’
A visibly upset local said the father is ‘very polite’ and ‘such a nice man’.
‘I don’t know how long he’s lived here, but he is known in the community,’ the man said.
