FLORIDA -- With Jacksonville temperatures surpassing 90 degrees regularly now, the inside of a car can get up to 160 degrees if it's left out in the sun.
It would be a hard for a human to survive those temperatures for an hour and a half, and animal experts said a dog wouldn't stand a chance.
That fact held true for 27-year-old Amanda Foxwell's dog, a Catahoula named Jones.
According to Jacksonville police, Foxwell left her dog inside her car in the sun for 90 minutes on Friday. Jones died after being pulled from the car. Foxwell is facing felony animal cruelty charges.
"The problem is people are careless with animals in the car," said Scott Trebatoski, of Animal Care and Protective Services. "They think if they crack a window, it's enough, and it's not enough. Temperature rises extremely quickly, even in the shade."
In the case of Foxwell, police said, only one of her car windows was cracked an inch. According to a police report, even after someone warned Foxwell that her dog needed help, Foxwell waited another 23 minutes to go get it out of the car.
“All I can tell you is that the report has false information," Foxwell said in an email. "I have witnesses and a clean record. I loved my dog.”
"Absolute horrible death," Trebatoski said of pet deaths in hot cars. "The animal would have had various organs shut down, damage. Even before it had died, it would have had permanent damage to internal organs and things like that."
Trebatoski said that a car parked in the shade can heat up 40 degrees in 10 minutes. If it's parked in the sun, he said, the car temperature can increase by 80 degrees.
"Which makes your car an oven," he said. "If you park your car in the sun, it could be 160 degrees in 10 minutes."
Residents who see a dog or cat in a car can call police, and officers and animal control officers have the authority to smash a car window to get the animal out of that car.
(News4Jax - May 24, 2011)
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