A Barrie mother has been charged after a crying child was rescued from a van in a grocery store parking lot.
According to Barrie police, the child was spotted inside the van just outside of the Sobey’s in the city’s south end on Thursday afternoon.
Courtney Arrand heard the 23-month-old child crying inside the van. The window was reportedly open about an inch.
“I was heading to my car and I heard a baby cry. I looked around and saw a van.”
A man was able to open the van and get the toddler out. She was kept in the shade until the mother and emergency crews arrived.
“We quickly got her out, got her cold, got her to a shady spot as 911 had told me to do,” she says. “Before the police actually got there the mom came back out with her two other children and was not very happy.”
The child was checked by paramedics, but was determined to be in good health.
“The car temperature goes up quickly. A young person has a very much more limited ability to deal with that than an older person,” says Dr. Charles Gardner, medical health officer for the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit. “Their core body temperature can go up quite a bit more quickly than an older person.”
Investigators determined the mother was away from the vehicle for about 16 minutes in total.
The 34-year-old Barrie woman was charged with child abandonment.
She will appear in court on next month.
