Baby Was Critically Burned In A Car Fire While His Mom Waited For A Pizza

A Missouri baby is lucky to be alive thanks to quick-thinking onlookers, after his mother left him unattended in a car – perhaps while a candle was burning – that caught fire while she waited for a pizza, KMOV (Saint Louis) is reporting.

On Thursday, a woman went into a Papa Murphy’s Pizza in Rolla, a small city about 100 miles west of Saint Louis, with a small child, according to employees. She waited about 10-15 minutes for her pizza, according to employee Gina Coffman.

“I heard screaming and I looked at the door and I saw the same young lady coming in the door with a baby in her arms in black soot. She [the mother] kept saying, ‘I knew I blew the candle out. I knew I blew the candle out.'”

Craig Greeno, also an employee at the pizza place, tells KSDK (Saint Louis) that the mother rushed back into the store carrying the baby, who had soot on his face, and appeared to have burn marks, which he believes came from melting material inside the car dripping onto the baby’s skin.

“Looked like it had dripped on his little face.”

Fortunately, a passer-by happened to be an emergency medical technician. Brandy Baker, who has served as a paramedic, had just pulled into the strip mall. She saw the commotion inside the Papa Murphy’s and went inside, where she performed CPR on the baby. It’s likely her quick thinking saved the baby’s life, according to police.

“Wonder woman. She just swooped in and took control. It was pretty tragic just to see what the baby had gone through, what it had to sit through was pretty awful.”

Witnesses claim that the mother who left the baby unattended in the car had a candle burning inside the vehicle, which they say then caught some nearby lottery tickets on fire, causing the car to become an inferno. However, as of this post, firefighters have not confirmed that a candle was present in the car or was the source of the fire.

The baby was taken to a Rolla hospital before being airlifted to a hospital in Saint Louis, where he remains in serious condition.

Cases like this underscore the importance of never leaving a child alone in a car unattended, even for a few moments.

As of this post, police have not named the woman who left her baby in a car while she got a pizza, nor have they announced if any charges will be filed.

[Image courtesy of: Shutterstock/Three Rivers11]