A New Jersey father was arrested after allegedly leaving his 4-month-old son in a family van for two hours, resulting in the first pediatric vehicular heatstroke death of 2025.

On March 18, Moshe Ehrlich was responsible for dropping four of his six children off at a babysitter’s home, according to The New York Post. Upon arriving, he realized he had forgotten the infant’s milk and returned to his Lakewood home to retrieve it, leaving three children with the sitter and the infant in the van.

After picking up the milk, Ehrlich allegedly drove to the Princeton Avenue yeshiva, forgetting the child was still in the vehicle, according to an arrest affidavit cited by the Post. The babysitter became concerned when Ehrlich did not return with the baby and texted the child’s mother. The affidavit states the message went unseen for more than an hour.

Both the mother and babysitter made repeated, unanswered calls to Ehrlich to inquire about the infant’s whereabouts. The babysitter’s teenage son later found the van parked outside the yeshiva with the baby inside.

First responders arrived to find the infant unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at Monmouth Medical Center Southern Campus in Lakewood.

Although the outdoor temperature reached only 63 degrees that day, the van’s interior temperature was estimated at 96 degrees due to direct sunlight.

According to NoHeatStroke.org, this marks the first hot car death involving a child in 2025. Last year, there were 39 pediatric vehicular heatstroke deaths—two more than the annual average recorded from 1998 to 2024.

[Feature Photo: Pixabay]