Florida mom left 2-year-old daughter in sweltering car to shop

A Florida mother left her 2-year-old daughter in a locked car as she shopped at Macy’s, authorities said.

Thamyres Maria Araujo Ponce, 32, was arrested Monday on a charge of child neglect after a Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy smashed the window of a white Nissan parked at the Mall at Wellington Green to free the tot, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports.

The temperature in Wellington that afternoon reached 96 degrees, according to an arrest report. The girl, who had a body temp of 102 when she was rescued, was treated by responding paramedics, deputies said.

Security camera video from the mall indicated that the girl was inside the car for roughly 25 minutes. A deputy who found the car busted the driver’s side window to free the child, who was discovered in a car seat, the newspaper reports.

Ponce returned to the car about 10 minutes after the deputy arrived and subsequently confessed to leaving the girl alone as she shopped at Macy’s, the Miami Herald reports.

The arrest report did not indicate what happened to the girl — who was found “crying, sweating and appeared to be in distress,” deputies said — once Ponce was taken into custody, according to the newspaper.

Ponce, of Belle Glade, was released later Monday after posting $1,000 bond, jail records show.

via: https://nypost.com/2020/07/15/florida-mom-left-2-year-old-daughter-in-hot-car-to-shop-deputies/

Photo Credit: pbso.org