[ad_1]
A Florida father has been arrested after police say he left his three-year-old daughter alone in a sweltering SUV while shopping for Mother’s Day gifts.
Raul Riello-Fernandez, 42, pleaded not guilty to charges of child neglect without serious bodily injury and leaving a child unattended in a vehicle.
According to Riello-Fernandez’s arrest report, he drove to a local convenience store last Saturday and left his toddler in the backseat of his Chevrolet SUV while he went inside.
The vehicle was not running and the windows were up, police said.
Police said that while Riello-Fernandez was in the store, another shopper parked near the father’s SUV and noticed the little girl alone and crying.
That shopper, concerned for the child’s safety, opened the rear passenger door and found the girl “crying, sweating and her skin was red,” the arrest report said.
An off-duty officer at the store rushed to the vehicle to help.
“When our officer got there, she was sweating profusely. She was red, red and crying,” West Palm Beach Police Department spokesman Mike Jackles told WPTV.
Minutes later, after additional police and fire crews arrived at the parking lot,
Riello-Fernandez left the store with a “cart full of merchandise,” the report said. When he saw law enforcement in action, he ran to his Chevy.
According to the arrest report, Riello-Fernandez told an officer he drove to the store from home and remembered putting his daughter in the SUV, but “completely forgot he was in the car” when he got to the store .
Riello-Fernandez said she “had a lot on her mind about Mother’s Day shopping and just forgot it was gone [the child]” in his car, the report said.
Police said it appears the girl was in the hot car for about 31 minutes. She was taken to a local medical center for further treatment. Her condition was not known as of Thursday.
“To say it was a close call is an understatement,” Jackless said.
The arrest report said a thermometer in a police officer’s car indicated a temperature of 38 degrees outside in the parking lot at the time of the incident.
Robert Moleda, a meteorologist with the U.S. National Weather Service in Miami, told WPTV that Florida’s current record heat can cause a car’s interior temperature to rise dangerously and quickly.
“Temperatures inside an enclosed vehicle can reach lethal levels in just 10 minutes,” he said.
[ad_2]
