A 2-year-old girl from Ohio died in a tragic accident after the power seat in her family’s Hyundai SUV unexpectedly folded down and pinned her, according to officials.
Lucia Ayala suffered fatal mechanical asphyxiation while inside a 2026 Hyundai Palisade with her mother and sibling in an Akron parking lot on March 7. Disturbing bodycam footage captured the heartbreaking moments as first responders desperately tried, but failed, to save her.
Following the tragedy, Hyundai announced a stop-sale of its 2026 Palisade Limited and Calligraphy trims and recalled around 70,000 SUVs as it works to determine a fix.
The adorable toddler died on March 7.
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The heartbreaking accident happened while Ayala’s “dad was doing some shopping, and they wanted to allow the children the room to just roam and play around in the car,” Akron police Lt. Michael Murphy told News 5 Cleveland.
“But at some point — we’re not certain of how this happened — that button that releases the seat went down, and the child was trapped.”
Bodycam footage captured the frantic moments as first responders rushed to help, while Lucia’s father tried to explain the difficulty he had with the seat to an officer.
“Right now, I’m trying to put it up,” he said. “It’s not working. I don’t know because we pulled it up so hard or something.”
“It’s one of those things where it’s really a freak accident where, however, the button was pressed, it went down and essentially crushed the child,” Lt. Murphy told the Daily Mail.
The young girl died at the hospital, the Summit County Medical Examiner’s Office told The Post.
The medical examiner found that Ayala suffocated due to an external force and ruled her death an accident, said Gary Guenther, the ME’s chief investigator.
Lucia was a “spunky, energetic little goofball whose personality filled every room she entered,” according to her obituary.
She could shift “from being wild & silly to being the sweetest angel in the blink of an eye,” the obituary also states, adding: “She was constantly moving, snacking on everything, giving the cheesiest smile.”
Days after her death, Hyundai announced it would stop sales of its 2026 Palisades Limited and Calligraphy trims in the US and Canada due to an “issue with the second and third-row power seats.”
“In certain situations, those seats may not properly detect contact with an occupant or object as intended,” the company said in a press release while addressing Lucia’s death.
“Hyundai is aware of a tragic incident involving a Palisade,” the automaker stated.
“While Hyundai does not yet have the full details and the incident remains under investigation, a young child lost her life. Hyundai extends its deepest sympathies to her family.”
Hyundai leadership, which at the time it was planning to recall about 70,000 SUVs, has since come up with a software update to fix the problem and get new cars back on sale. “As soon as the remedy is applied to the vehicle it is available for sale,” the company said Monday.
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