A grandfather left his granddaughter in the back of a rental car he returned at Hertz Airport, Florida police said.
AP
Employees at a Hertz car rental location at the airport found a toddler who had been left in the backseat of a hot car for 45 minutes after it was returned, a Florida sheriff’s office said.
Deputies are assigned to Daytona Beach International Airport Hertz replied around 6 p.m. on Oct. 10, according to a Facebook post from the Volusia Sheriff’s Office.
A Hertz employee reported that the toddler was in a locked vehicle at a car drop-off location, the statement said. The car was returned at 17.13.
When deputies arrived, they found the rental car employee holding a child “whose face was warm and covered in dried tears but breathing normally,” the report said. The temperature in the unshaded parking lot was 80 degrees.
Paramedics examined the child and found her to be “scared and hot,” but there were no other health problems.
Officers said they were unable to contact the driver of the vehicle, but later received a call from the child’s mother. She told them that her father had left his granddaughter in a rental car, not at his home as he had previously said, according to the sheriff’s office.
The child’s mother went to the airport to pick up her daughter. When deputies contacted the grandfather, he was “repentant and agreed to cooperate,” according to the statement. He was charged with one count of child neglect.
The Sheriff’s Department reported the incident to the Department of Children and Family Services and issued civil awards to Hertz employees.
