TAMPA, Fla. – TO tampa A mother said Halloween got off to a very scary start after her young child was trapped in her Tesla for almost two hours after the vehicle’s doors closed unexpectedly.

Dakota Knox said she strapped her 18-month-old daughter, Salem, into the car seat of her Tesla around 7:30 a.m. Thursday. Immediately after she closed the rear passenger door, her husband attempted to open the driver’s door.

“He says, ‘The door won’t open. The door won’t open. I don’t understand. I’m trying the app and the handle doesn’t work,'” Knox said.

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Suddenly all the doors of the vehicle closed. And Salem, in her green Tinkerbell costume, was strapped into her car seat inside.

“I was terrified. My daughter was screaming. She was terrified,” Knox said.

The manual key would not open the vehicle, Knox said. Restarting the Tesla app did nothing. And even though the vehicle was fully loaded, none of the doors opened.

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

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Turns out it was the vehicle’s 12-volt battery, which powers things like the vehicle’s door locks. Knox said she and her husband tried connecting the 12-volt battery, but once again, nothing worked.

Knox approached Tesla and told him that staff told him they couldn’t send anyone to help until the afternoon. That’s why she was relieved when three Tampa Police Department officers showed up.

“They were very calm and they were watching YouTube videos. We were all trying to Google things,” Knox said.

According to Knox, they discovered a way to manually open the doors of his Tesla Model 3, but it was near the front seats. Then Tampa police officers introduced a team through the barely open rear window.

“We had to go from the back seat and reach it to the front seat. And fortunately, the police officers were able to unlatch it and open the door,” Knox said. “We all applauded.”

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Knox said her daughter had been trapped in the locked Tesla for nearly two hours.

The Tampa mom told FOX 13 that she usually gets warnings and updates about any and all Tesla problems, which is a feature she really likes about the company. But he said he didn’t receive a notification that his 12-volt battery needed replacing until about 12:15 p.m., about five hours after the battery died.

Now she shares her story to raise awareness among other parents. He also hopes Tesla will take a closer look.

“It seems to be a problem that you can’t get out of and they don’t have an override mechanism,” Knox said. “I loved our Tesla up until this moment. This was terrifying.”

FOX 13 reached out to Tesla’s media team, but we have not heard back.

Whether or not you drive an electric vehicle, experts recommend replacing your car battery – which powers things like the vehicle’s locks and electrical systems – every three years.

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