A Florida daycare worker was arrested Friday after police said she left a 3-year-old unattended in a hot van for more than an hour while she took other children into a mall to watch a movie.
Cheryl Hannah, 55, went into a movie theater at a Leesburg-area mall at 10:10 a.m. Friday with a group of children from the New Life Center Ministries daycare she worked at, the Daily Commercial reports. While the group was watching the movie, a shopper at the mall walked through the parking lot and heard a child crying from inside the daycare van.
Christina Bivins found the 3-year-old "sweating profusely" and noticed that he had urinated and soiled himself, so she got him out of the van and brought him into the mall and alerted the authorities at 11:14 a.m., police said.
Mall security found Hannah, who told officers she didn’t realize she had left a child in the van, police said.
"It would be similar to leaving a loaded gun out for access by a child. You don't have to intend for something to happen when responsibility and negligence are involved," Lt. Joe Iozzi, a Lake County police spokesman, told the Daily Commercial.
The child was checked out by medical personnel and returned to his mother in good condition, police said. Hannah was arrested and charged with leaving a child less than 6 years old unattended in a vehicle for more than 15 minutes.
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