Wichita ? A 2-year-old boy left alone inside a car with two other small children suffocated when his head and neck became caught between a car door frame and its window, authorities said.

The accident happened about 10:30 p.m. Monday when the boy’s 24-year-old father went into a friend’s apartment to call the mother of his 2-year-old and 9-month-old daughters, who also were in the car, police said.

The boy was left in a seat belt in the back seat. He was probably trying to climb out the driver’s window of his father’s car when he stepped on the power window switch, Wichita Police Lt. Ken Landwehr said.

When the father returned, the boy’s neck was stuck. The father drove his son to Via Christi Regional Medical Center, where police were notified, Landwehr said.

“The cause of death was likely asphyxiation,” Landwehr said, adding that investigators were awaiting autopsy results.

He said prosecutors would review the case to determine if charges should be filed.

The case wasn’t the first of its kind in the state.

A 2-year-old Anthony girl was strangled last August when her knee hit the window switch as she tried to pet a dog through the window of her grandfather’s truck.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has begun a study on injuries caused by power windows, said spokesman Rae Tyson.

“We usually don’t keep track of deaths that don’t occur on the highway,” he said from his office in Washington, D.C. “But we’re looking to see if there’s a problem we’re not aware of.”

San Francisco-based Kids ‘N’ Cars has identified almost 50 children killed in accidents connected to power windows since 1985.

But the actual number is probably higher because no single agency tracks those deaths, said Janette Fennell, executive director of the national organization that studies nontraffic-related injuries to children left alone in cars.

Power windows are required to stop when they hit a rod simulating a finger, Fennell said. But many child car safety experts don’t think it is enough to prevent strangulation.

The organization sent letters in May to the Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Daimler-Chrysler corporations urging them to redesign their power window switches so the switch must be pulled up, rather than pressed down.

She said many foreign cars are already equipped with the safety feature.