Girl Suffocates In Small Refrigerator

A 4-year-old girl was found dead after she crawled inside a small refrigerator in a camping trailer parked next to her home and suffocated.

Lucille Elaine Waddell was found by Jackson County sheriff’s deputies about 20 minutes after her mother, Linda Lee Martin, reported her missing late Saturday night.

The girl was rushed to Rogue Valley Medical Center, but efforts to revive her were unsuccessful.

The refrigerator was described as 3 feet wide and 3 feet tall with an older-style push-button handle, sheriff’s Sgt. John Atkins said. It was inside a 1967 camping trailer parked next to the girl’s house.

Atkins said children had played in the trailer in the past.

“Kids die from swing sets, they die in irrigation ditches or by crawling in culverts … This is a very tragic and unfortunate incident, as are the others,” Atkins said.