A mom in California faced a frightening situation last week when her child was locked inside her Tesla while it was charging on a 109-degree day. With no way of opening up the vehicle to get her child out of the sweltering car, Kassandra Pineda and a bystander were forced to smash the car’s window to free the child.
Pineda parked up at a Tesla charging point in the San Fernando Valley on Monday, September 9, reports Fox 11 news in Los Angeles. After plugging her car into the charge point, Pineda discovered that her car doors had locked with her 13-month-old baby boy still inside.
After frantically trying to unlock the car, Pineda began banging on the windows and calling for help to try and smash the glass to get her child out of the car while the temperature rose. As Fox 11 reports:
“It was hot. The last time I checked the monitor, it was 109 degrees outside, so I can’t even imagine how hot it was inside,” Kassandra said.
“She was all over the place, just saying, ‘My baby, my baby, my baby, please break the window, break the window,” Adrian Ortega said.
He and Kassandra were charging their cars at a Tesla Supercharger in the San Fernando Valley.
When Kassandra stepped out to disconnect the charger, her Tesla unexpectedly locked her out, with her 13-month-old baby boy, Liam Valenzuela, still inside.
Ortega and Pineda reportedly spent eight minutes attempting to open the car or break a window to get the child out of the car. Ortega turned to a fishing weight that they swung at a window to smash their way inside. When that didn’t work, his Tesla’s tow hook did. Ortega added: “Oh, he was scared… once I opened the door, he was sweating… it looked like he had just taken a shower or a bath.”
Pineda has since reached out to Tesla to try and figure out what caused the car to lock with her child inside, with little in the way of answers offered by the automaker so far. According to Fox11, the company initially thought the issue stemmed from a software update, but upon inspection of the vehicle they found that “nothing was wrong with the car.”
What’s more, Pineda has since discovered that the footage captured by her car in Sentry Mode has reportedly been wiped from the car’s memory, meaning that no footage of her and Ortega attempting to open the car to rescue the child remains.
The ordeal in California isn’t the first time a Tesla owner has been forced to turn to extreme measures to get a child out of a car. In June, another young child was trapped inside a Tesla EV after the car’s nine-volt battery died and there was no other way to open its doors.
