TORONTO – A mother’s anguish and regret was on full display after an Oklahoma police officer told her she had left her one-year-old daughter inside a hot car for over an hour.
But according to one bystander, that sadness isn’t enough to make up for her serious lapse in judgment.
READ MORE: Police officer yells at mother after 2-year-old rescued from hot car
The scene played out Tuesday in the parking lot of a Walmart in Owasso, a suburb of Tulsa.
According to the police report, a couple was walking past a van in the late afternoon when they heard what they described as a whimper coming from inside the vehicle.
The couple said they couldn’t believe what they saw when they peeked inside the car: a young girl suffering from massive heat exposure.
“She was just really red. She wasn’t making any sounds, wasn’t crying, was just really lethargic and dripping in sweat,” said Lansdowne.
“It’s like you dunked a kid in a swimming pool and put them in a car seat. Her diaper was wet, that’s how soaked she was. It was bad.”
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The couple called police and found, to their relief, that the driver side door was open — allowing them to get the child out of the hot car.
According to the Owasso Fire Department, the temperature inside the car was as high as 50 C when the child was retrieved.
When police arrived on scene, they made contact with the child’s mother, Hanna Secondi, as she was walking out of the store.
Footage captured on the arresting officer’s body camera shows her distress upon being told her child had been left in the scorching vehicle.
“Are you married?” the officer is heard asking.
“Yes sir,” Secondi replied.
“You need to call him and have him come here right now because you’re going to jail.”
“Yes sir. I’m so sorry.”
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Witnesses said Secondi’s teenage daughter and other people with her at the time, leaving them mystified as to how they all could have forgotten the young girl inside the hot car.
“How in this day and age does someone do that? I’m 30 and I’ve heard that from childhood, ‘Don’t leave a baby in the car,’” Jay, the other good Samaritan, told KOTV.
Police arrested Secondi on charges of child abuse. She is currently being held on a $50,000 bond.
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