Toddler found in backseat of hot rental car returned at airport, Florida cops say

Employees at an airport Hertz car rental facility found a toddler who had been left in the backseat of a hot car for 45 minutes after it had been returned, a Florida sheriff’s office said.

Deputies assigned to Daytona Beach International Airport responded to the Hertz at around 6 p.m. on Oct. 10, according to a statement from the Volusia Sheriff’s Office on Facebook.

A Hertz employee reported that a toddler was in a locked vehicle in the car return lot, the statement says. The vehicle had been returned at 5:13 pm.

When deputies arrived, they found the rental car employee holding the child, “whose face was warm and streaked with dried tears, but was breathing normally,” the statement says. The temperature in the unshaded parking lot was 80 degrees.

Paramedics examined the child and found she was “scared and hot” but did not have any medical issues.

Employees said they had not been able to get in touch with the driver of the vehicle, but they later received a call from the child’s mother. She told them that her father had left his granddaughter in the rental car and not at his home, as he had previously said, according to the sheriff’s office.

The child’s mother drove to the airport to pick up her daughter. When deputies got in touch with the grandfather he was “remorseful and cooperative,” the statement says. He was charged with one count of child neglect.

The sheriff’s department notified the Department of Children and Families about the incident and awarded the Hertz employees with citizens awards.

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