Authorities have formally charged a Minnesota mother after video shows her two-year-old daughter falling out of a moving vehicle onto a roadway while strapped in a car seat.
Maimuna Hassan of Mankato, Minn., was charged Thursday with child endangerment, failing to properly secure a child passenger restraint and a misdemeanor driver’s licence violation.
Police in Mankato responded to a call on Monday reporting a child in the middle of a roadway after the toddler, still strapped to a car seat, had toppled out of the car as it rounded a bend in the road. The child was not injured in the incident.
The incident was captured on dashcam video by Chad Mock, who was driving behind the car when the child fell out of the rear driver’s side door.
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“If it didn’t happen in front of me I’d never have believed it… the child was OK,” the man said in a Facebook post.
Video shows the car veering around a curve in the road when the child popped out of the car before the mother continued driving down the street, seemingly unaware of what had just happened.
Mock immediately stopped his vehicle and rushed to the child’s aid.
“The parents came back. Paramedics and police checked the child out as well,” Mock said. “Very lucky.”
According to the City of Mankato Public Safety, the child was assessed by first responders and was found to be uninjured as a result of the incident.
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The Mankato Free Press reported Thursday that the mother was driving the vehicle without a licence. Citing court documents, the newspaper reported Hassan had returned to the scene of the incident after police had arrived. The woman parked her car down the street and walked back with another child.
Hassan was “crying and upset” and hugged the two-year-old, the Free Press reported. The woman told police her child was secured in the backseat but must have unlocked herself before toppling out of the car.
A police officer inspected Hassan’s 2004 Honda Civic and found no restraint mechanism to secure the car seat in the back of the vehicle. The vehicle was compatible with a latching system required to secure car seats, according to the newspaper.
Hassan is scheduled to be in court on Feb. 14.
—With a file from the Associated Press