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.
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“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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