Paralyzed Woman Trapped in Hot Car with 2 Kids Dies After It Ran Out of Gas

A woman has died after becoming trapped inside a broken-down hot car.

The woman, Megan Oxley, was paralyzed from the waist down, and had been driving from Kennett, Missouri with her young niece and nephew when the car ran out of gas.

Unable to get out of the car, Oxley died after the temperatures inside the vehicle soared above 100 F.

Oxley's sister, Amber Jones, contacted the Dunklin County Sheriff's Department after not hearing from Oxley or her kids for several hours.

"I just assumed that maybe she stayed with someone or maybe someone had come and got her, but no one was able to get ahold of her, and the next morning we were pretty panicked, we called the cops and got them involved," Jones told local news station KAIT.

Oxley's niece and nephew got out of the car and tried to help Oxley climb out, but due to her paralysis and their young age, she was unable to exit the vehicle.

Heat can be incredibly deadly, killing more people than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods combined in the U.S. during an average year.

It's especially deadly inside cars, which can see temperatures soar rapidly. The inside of a vehicle parked in 70 F weather can reach 100 F in just 20 minutes, and climb to 140 F in less than an hour on very hot days.

The body can become dehydrated and enter heat exhaustion, which leads to excessive sweating, headaches, and increased heart rate

"That can progress to heatstroke, where you have a loss of consciousness similar to a stroke with slurred speech, confusion, agitation, hallucinations, and just general altered mental status," John Tully, medical director of emergency departments at Baptist Health System in San Antonio, Texas, previously told Newsweek. "That's usually when the core temperature gets above around 106 degrees Fahrenheit. Patients can have muscle twitching, seizures and that becomes a life-threatening emergency."

Up to 10 percent of people who experience heat stroke die, according to the American Association of Family Physicians (AAFP).

The children were taken to the hospital for treatment, and are both in good condition.

"I am so thankful, I am so happy she is alive. I was terrified, very terrified," Jones said of her daughter, one of the children in the car.

Children are more at risk of heatstroke than adults as, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), the temperature of a child's body rises three to five times faster than an adult's.

Over 950 children have died of heatstroke due to being left or trapped in a hot car over the past 25 years, of which 33 died in 2022.

Jones said she is devastated at the loss of her sister.

"She was happy when I saw her last, she was smiling and talking to me. She was just so full of life," she said.

Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about heatstroke? Let us know via science@newsweek.com.