WATCH ABOVE: New Jersey police had to smash a car window to get to a crying two-year-old who was trapped in a hot car while her mother shopped at Costco. Jannelle Burrell reports.
TORONTO – A two-year-old New Jersey girl has been rescued from her family’s hot van — the latest in a string of similar incidents this summer as the warm weather continues to beat down on North America.
Arislyeda Pena and her fiancé Rafael Rodriguez were part of a small group of good samaritans that surrounded a dark grey mini-van in a parking lot Thursday afternoon at a Costco in Hackensack, New Jersey.
READ MORE: Mother breaks down after learning she left 1-year-old in hot car for over an hour
The reason? A two-year-old girl was crying inside — red-faced and completely dripping with sweat. Her parent or caregiver was nowhere to be found.
Pena recorded video of the ordeal with her cell phone.
“Where are the parents?” one bystander can be heard asking.
“I think shopping,” another replies.
“Are you kidding me?” he responds.
READ MORE: What kind of person could forget a child in a hot car? Anyone, experts say
Police officers eventually arrived and quickly smashed a rear passenger window to gain access.
“She’s soaking wet,” a female officer can be heard declaring as she embraced the child.
Moments later the child’s mother, 43-year-old Chaeyoung Lim-Kim, came rushing out of the Costco.
“You left her in the car!” the female officer chided her. The mother’s response was a simple “sorry, sorry.”
“No ‘Sorry!’ She could have died!”
Lim-Kim was arrested and faces a child endangerment charge. Her other children are now in the custody of their father.
“It’s just shocking that people can leave their kids like that,” added one witness.
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