TAMPA, Fla. (WSVN) —The start of Halloween was terrifying when parents discovered their little one was trapped inside a Tesla.

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

“We left like any other morning,” Knox said.

But when her husband went to sit in the driver’s seat, he was surprised to discover that the door wouldn’t open.

“It’s like the door doesn’t open. The door doesn’t open. I don’t understand. I’m testing the app and the identifier doesn’t work.”

Suddenly all the doors of the vehicle closed.

And Salem, in her green Tinker Bell costume for Halloween, was strapped in her car seat crying inside.

“So I was terrified. My son was screaming. “I was terrified,” Knox said.

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

And even though the vehicle was fully loaded, none of the doors opened.

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

It turns out that the problem was the vehicle’s 12-volt battery.

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

“So from there, we’re trying to jump over it. And still he didn’t do anything. “I wouldn’t open any of the doors,” Knox said.

Knox said Tesla staff told him they couldn’t send anyone to help until the afternoon.

That’s why she was relieved when Tampa police showed up.

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

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

“And get to the front seat. And luckily, police officers were able to get in and open the door. “We all applauded,” Knox said.

Knox was not notified that the battery needed to be replaced until five hours after it died.

He wants other parents to take notice and Tesla to take a closer look.

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