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Toddler Left In Hot Car By Grandmother And Aunt In Target Parking Lot

By Heather Tooley
Published on: 03:45 PST, Aug 15, 2016

A toddler was left in a hot car by her grandmother and aunt in a Target parking lot. The incident occurred Sunday afternoon in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. The aunt and grandmother locked a little girl inside a car that wasn’t running and internal temperatures soared to 115 degrees.

Fox 29 reports that the child’s grandmother, 41, and aunt, 19, are facing charges of endangering the welfare of a child after leaving the toddler in the hot car.

Names of those charged have not been released to the public.

According to the report, several customers at the store located on Rockhill Drive called the police after spotting the child inside the car at around 4:05 p.m. An off-duty Philadelphia Police officer managed to open the vehicle’s door to rescue the child as emergency crews arrived. The one-year-old girl was turned over to her mother, who took her to St. Mary’s Hospital. The toddler will reportedly be fine.

The Bensalem incident isn’t the only hot car violation that has taken place in the last few days. Last week, a three-year-old girl was intentionally left inside a hot car by her father and grandmother in Lake Wales, Florida in a Walmart parking lot. Store employees called police, who managed to rescue the child. By the time they reached her, she had wet hair from being so sweaty, and she was red in the face, WTSP 10 reports.

Anna Adams, 57, and Timothy Adams, 28, left the toddler in a hot car that wasn’t running. They did take a six-year-old with them to the store. Surveillance video showed that the pair purposefully left the girl inside the car because they looked back at the girl locked inside the vehicle. Outside temperatures reached 85 degrees, but it felt more like 95 degrees by virtue of the humidity factor.

When responding officers arrived at the scene, they checked all the doors and discovered they were locked. Officer Matt Rhoden then broke through the front passenger window, and Sergeant Yoxall removed the girl from the car.

“As soon as they got her out, she just wrapped her arms around the sergeant’s neck and laid her head on his shoulder and quit crying,” said Lt. Dave Black of the Lake Wales Police Department said.

Polk County Fire Rescue provided treatment before sending her to Lake Wales Medical Center as a precaution.

Lt. Black said it’s “somewhat of a miracle” that the toddler was okay.

The two adults who left the girl inside the hot car were called to the service desk. They told authorities that they both thought the other had the child despite the fact they left the car together and looked behind them at the girl, as evidenced in video footage. The video also shows that as the pair entered the store, Anna Adams appeared to look back once more at the car. The girl was left in the car for about 20 minutes before she was rescued.

As for his thoughts on the case, Lt. Black insists this wasn’t an accident. The father and grandmother intentionally left the three-year-old in the hot car. A motive for their horrible act isn’t known, but they face hefty charges for their role in the incident. Fortunately, the girl was treated and released without any serious injuries.

Anna and Timothy Adams were placed under arrest for child neglect without bodily harm and were taken to the Polk County Jail.

Officers and the Department of Children and Families worked together in an effort to find a safe place for the toddler that was left in the car and the six-year-old child that went into the store with Anna and Timothy.

[Photo via Shutterstock]

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