Accumulation of fluid in the lungs, which caused pulmonary edema, was listed as the cause of death in the forensic report released on Wednesday for the 5.5-month-old baby girl that died after having been forgotten by her father in the car for several hours.
The autopsy was carried out at the University Hospital of Ioannina, and it reports that the infant suffered suffocation, sweating, wheezing in the lungs, shortness of breath, cough, difficulty breathing, hypoxia, resulting in pulmonary edema that led to cardiac arrest due to hypoxemia, tachycardia and cyanosis.
The 37-year-old father was supposed to leave the child at the nursery station but he forgot it in the back seat of the car and went to work, KTG reported.
The tragic mistake was discovered when the 27-year-old mother went to the nursery to pick up the child and she was told the little girl was not there.
The parents rushed the unresponsive baby girl to hospital where doctors tried to revive her, however, in vain.
It was the mother who usually brought the infant to the nursery and it was the first time the father did so.
Parents in shock
Informed by the doctors that the infant had gone, both parents fainted. There are local media reports that the father tried to end his life with a television cable around his neck and the mother threatening to fall from the hospital balcony.
They were hospitalized under heavy sedation on Tuesday, with the father being guarded as well.
The father was brought to prosecutor earlier on Wednesday and was returned to the hospital where he remains guarded by police. He has been reportedly charged with “exposure of an infant to danger” and “non-intentional manslaughter.”
The mother is reportedly in a special hospital ward, supported by her family and psychologists.
There is discrete police in the hospital as there are fears of incidents from the family of the mother’s side.
Yesterday, they reportedly threatened to “lynch” the father whom they consider the sole responsible for the baby’s death
Father’s first statements
According to Mega TV, the desperate father stated:
“We started from home at 07:00. Instead of turning left at the nursery, I turned right and went to work. The kid in the back seat must have been sleeping, she wasn’t crying and I couldn’t hear her. The seat was low and I couldn’t see it from the mirror.”
Through his lawyer he expressed the wish that ‘such a tragedy happens to no one.”
Baby to be “baptized” before funeral
The baby’s funeral is scheduled for Saturday in her mother’s village near Art, Epirus, western Greece.
She will be christened with the name Lydia-Eleni with a special religious wish for infants, as neither baptize nor so called “baptized in the air” is possible.
