Just one day after her first birthday, a toddler left in a sweltering car died while her mother worked teaching elementary school in Dallas, Tex., according to The Dallas Morning News. The mother, 42-year old Vibha Marks, was arrested on May 17 on a charge of second-degree child abandonment, according to the Dallas Police Department.
Marks has also been placed on administrative leave from her job teaching at Frank Guzick Elementary School in Dallas, and was held in Dallas County Jail on Friday.
"Obviously, this is a very tragic situation," the elementary school said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the teacher and her family at this time, as well as the staff at Guzick Elementary."
Her daughter, Victoria Marks, was pronounced dead after being taken to a local hospital. The baby was discovered after Exenia Gomez, a high school senior who interns at the elementary school, discovered the baby in the afternoon.
"I looked over and saw that there was a baby in there," Gomez said of her discovery. "I looked at the baby and she wasn't moving. She had dried bubbles on her face and her eyes were still looking down." She could tell by the toddler's breathing and strange coloring that there was something wrong, so she called 911.
An operator told her to remove the baby from the car and perform CPR on her until rescue workers arrived, so Gomez broke a car window with a piece of lumber from the back of her truck and performed CPR on the dying toddler.
"I actually held her and saw her face," Gomez said. "It was horrible just seeing that."
According to Gomez, temperatures outside had reached 86 degrees by the time she found the baby. After parademics arrived, Victoria Marks was transported to Baylor University Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
Gomez's mother, Lucy, said she gave her daughter a hug when she arrived home that day and tried to console her.
"She said, 'Mom, I tried,'" Lucy said.
Marks has worked as a food writer, nutritionist, obesity consultant, and has a master's degree in nutrition and food management from a U.K. university, according to her online blog profile.
When Marks gave birth to her daughter on May 16, 2012, her father wrote "It's a girl" on her Facebook page, a photo showing the baby in a blanket wearing a knitted pink and blue hat. Victoria Marks turned one last Thursday on the day before her death.
Click here to see photos of Victoria Marks and her mother, Vibha Marks, who was arrested on Friday.
