Tampa Police Rescue Toddler Stuck in Tesla on Halloween - WSVN 7News

TAMPA, Fla. (WSVN) -It was a scary start to Halloween when parents discovered their toddler was stuck in a Tesla.

Around 7:30 a.m. on Halloween in Tampa, Dakota Knox put her daughter Salem into her Tesla and closed the door.

“We came out just like any other morning,” Knox said.

But when her husband got behind the wheel, he was shocked to find the door wouldn’t open.

‘He acts like the door won’t open. The door doesn’t open. I don’t understand. I try the app, but the lever doesn’t work.’

All the doors of the vehicle were suddenly locked.

And Salem, in her green Tinkerbell costume for Halloween, was strapped into her car seat and crying inside.

“So I was terrified. My child screamed. She was terrified,” Knox said.

Knox said the manual key would not open the vehicle and restarting the Tesla app did nothing.

And despite the vehicle itself being fully charged, none of the doors opened.

“We don’t actually know what’s going on. This is strange. This has never happened before,” said Knox.

Turns out the vehicle’s 12 volt battery was the problem.

This battery powers things like the vehicle’s door locks.

“So from there we try to jump over it. And it still didn’t do anything. It wouldn’t open any doors,” Knox said.

Knox said Tesla staff told her they wouldn’t be able to send someone to help until the afternoon.

So she was relieved when the Tampa police showed up.

“They were so calm and watching YouTube videos. We all try to Google things,” she said.

They’ve figured out a way to manually open the doors of Knox’s Tesla Model 3.

“And reach all the way to the front seat. And luckily the police officers were actually able to come in and open the door. We were all cheering,” Knox said.

Knox did not receive a notification that her battery needed to be replaced until five hours after it was empty.

She wants other parents to know about this and for Tesla to take a closer look.