Cops break car window to save baby
CAMDEN, N.J. — Two Camden County police officers smashed a car window Thursday to reach a screaming, sweating baby left in a locked car outside a CVS, authorities said.
A woman approached Officer Belinda Villegas-Ramos, who was working in uniform on a private assignment at a Camden bank.
The woman told Villegas-Ramos a baby was crying in a locked car in the adjacent CVS parking lot. The temperature inside the car was not known, but according to Consumer Reports, a car's interior can reach 120 degrees when the outside temperature is in the 70s.
"I just thought about getting that baby out of the vehicle and getting him to a safe area," said Villegas-Ramos, who called in the situation to police headquarters as she hurried to the car.
Villegas-Ramos tried to break the driver's side window with her flashlight, but could only create spiderweb cracks. Officer Joseph McGrath, who arrived moments later in response to Villegas-Ramos' call, smashed the glass into pieces with his nightstick.
"I guess I hit it in the right spot," he said after the rescue.
Villegas-Ramos scooped up the baby, rushed him into the air-conditioned bank, and partially undressed the child to cool him. An ambulance then took the boy to nearby Cooper University Hospital.
McGrath said the boy's mother emerged shortly after the baby's rescue. "She was mad about the window being broken," he noted.
"She said she just went into the CVS for two seconds," said McGrath, who noted the joint rescue effort had taken several minutes.
The 30-year-old mother was taken into custody and charged with child endangerment. Her name was not immediately available. State child-welfare authorities also were alerted after the incident, police said.
"This was a poor judgment call on her part," observed Villegas-Ramos. "She's going to need some kind of help. Hopefully, she'll learn from this."