A woman paralysed from the waist down died after her car ran out of petrol during a family road trip in Missouri, in the United States, in 2023. Megan Oxley, 36, had been visiting her sister in Kennett, Missouri, and had her young niece and nephew with her in the car.
Family raises the alarm
Several hours later, relatives noticed the three had gone missing. Megan's sister, Amber Jones, told Kait8: "I just assumed that maybe she stayed with someone, or maybe someone had come and got her."
"But no one was able to get a hold of her, and the next morning, we were pretty panicked. We called the cops and got them involved," she added.
Discovery on Highway 412
The Dunklin County Sheriff's Department tracked down Megan's car south of Kennett, on Highway 412, discovering her lifeless body trapped in the driver's seat - with the two children nowhere to be seen, reports the Daily Star.
Sheriff Bob Holder told Kait8: "There was indication that they were outside the vehicle, there were footprints outside the vehicle, they had been outside a little."
Children found alive
Investigators determined that Megan's car had run dry of petrol, leaving her stranded as temperatures soared above 100°F (almost 40°C). Both children managed to free themselves from the vehicle but were unable to help their aunt escape.
According to WWNYTV, the children were too young to fully comprehend the danger Megan faced, and were unable to bring her to safety. Megan's niece and nephew were subsequently found and airlifted by helicopter to hospital, where they made a swift recovery, according to their mother, Melissa Jones.
Speaking about the loss of her sister, Melissa said: "She was happy when I saw her last, she was smiling and talking to me. She was just so full of life." She drew comfort from the fact that the children were found alive and unharmed following the "terrifying" ordeal.
Heatstroke risk in vehicles
People and animals left in vehicles face an extremely high risk of overheating, with an average of 37 to 38 children dying from vehicular heatstroke annually in the United States, totalling more than 1,000 deaths since 1998, according to the US National Safety Council. The UK rarely experiences the sustained high temperatures necessary to raise a vehicle's interior to fatally dangerous levels for prolonged periods.
