A Kansas couple is facing multiple felony charges after police say they left their six children, including two infants, locked inside a sweltering vehicle while they ate lunch at a restaurant. Michael Krueger, 53, and Tiffany Krueger, 40, were arrested following the incident in Salina on Wednesday, July 8, according to the Salina Police Department.
According to a local news report by KWCH, officers responded to a restaurant in the 1600 block of South Ohio Street shortly after 2 p.m. after receiving a report of children left unattended in a parked vehicle.
Officers found the car turned off with only one window partially open. They say the children included two 7-month-old infants, along with kids ages 2, 4, 5, and 13, who were taken into protective custody.
The couple was allegedly inside the fast-food chain for about 20 to 30 minutes while their children were inside the car, according to the report. The outside temperature at the time was 97 degrees, with a heat index of 102 degrees.
According to reporting from FOX Kansas, emergency crews, who evaluated the children, said the kids did not appear to have serious medical problems.
The parents were booked into the Saline County Jail with six counts of aggravated child endangerment. If convicted, the two could serve a potential sentence of 5 to 17 months in prison, according to documents reviewed by Law&Crime.
View this post on Instagram
Salina Fire Department official Chad Scoville warned that infants and young kids are especially vulnerable to fatal heatstroke even in relatively short windows of time.
“A child’s body temperature rises three to five times faster than adults’,” Scoville told KWCH. “They just do not have the same regulating capabilities that an adult does.”
“Temperatures can reach deadly levels inside cars within minutes,” Scoville said, adding, “Anything can happen at any time, even if you think you’re going to be minutes—that could turn into an hour. We simply do not want to leave unattended children or pets in unattended vehicles. Period.”
According to the CDC, cracking a window does not reduce temperatures inside a vehicle. Temperatures inside vehicles can rise to over 108 degrees in approximately 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, officers have said such calls aren’t common; his department fields a handful of similar reports involving children left in hot vehicles every year. According to a report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 31 children died in the U.S. after being left in hot vehicles in 2025 alone.
Netizens have reacted strongly to the incident on social media, with one saying that “there is no excuse for this kind of stupidity.” A Facebook user commented, “What is wrong with people? Shouldn’t be keep in an air condition jail,” while another one wrote, “Parents that knowing endanger their kids like this with the possibility of death, should not get their kids back. There’s no excuse. If you can’t make the proper judgement call when it comes to your kids and a hot car, then what other endangering choices are you making also?”
Disclaimer: The Inquisitr could not independently verify all details of this incident and is reporting based on information available from law enforcement and other news outlets.
