Child Recovering After Being Left in Parked Car at Forest Glen Metro Station

A 6-month-old child is recovering after he was left in a car at the Forest Glen Metro parking lot in Silver Spring, Maryland when his father went to work Wednesday morning, Metro officials said.

The father then recognized his error and called for help. The baby was found conscious and breathing, Metro officials said, but his body temperature was very high.

The child is now being treated at Holy Cross Hospital,  The baby may have been in the car from 7:30 a.m. until shortly after 10 a.m., Metro officials said.

That's when the father realized what he had done, according to Metro officials. He called the child's grandparents, who alerted authorities.

"Our son-in-law accidentally left the baby in the back of the car," the child's grandmother can be heard saying on a 911 call obtained by News4. 

Firefighters rushed to the scene at the suburban D.C. Metro stop, smashed the windows of the car and rushed the child to an area hospital by fire truck. 

"He was a little pale, dry," said Capt. Julio Falcon of Montgomery County Fire and Rescue, who helped rescue the child. "Due to the conditions you would think that he would be sweaty, but he was dry. The back of his romper was a little wet, leading us to believe he was suffering from dehydration."

Child Protective Services will investigate and will work with the State's Attorney's Office to determine whether charges will be filed, a Metro spokesman said.

The car that the child is believed to be in, a dark grey Subaru, was driven away from the parking lot by a unknown person this morning. Later in the day, that car was spotted in the hospital parking lot.

"It could have had a tragic outcome," said Pete Piringer, a spokesman for Montgomery County Fire and Rescue. 

"It's a good rule of thumb: if this is not your common routine to have the children in the car and take them to day care or wherever you might take them, it's a good idea to put something in the back seat that you need when you get to your destination," Piringer said.

Eleven children have died after being left in hot cars for too long this year. That's down from 21 deaths that happened before Aug. 1 of last year, according to NoHeatStroke.org. There were a total of 31 hot car deaths in 2014.

Just last week, a group of parents from across the nation asked the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration to speed up the effort to find technical solutions to the problem.

Stay with NBC Washington and News4 for more on this developing story.

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