Poignant moment of policewoman cradling a baby found ‘locked in a sweltering car’ outside the mall – after my mother’s common gaffe
- Police rescued a girl from a hot car
- Officers smashed window to save three-month-old baby
Police have thrown open the window of a hot car to rescue a three-month-old girl at a shopping center in southwest Sydney after a mother accidentally locked her keys in the car.
The little girl was rescued from the car just before 9am on Tuesday morning at Roselands Shopping Center in southwest Sydney – with a poignant photo emerging of a police officer tenderly cradling the girl.
The child was unharmed.
It comes just one day after police and NRMA employees frantically smashed the window of another vehicle at the Dee Why shopping center on the city’s northern beaches, rescuing two children.
A three-month-old baby girl was rescued from a car just before 9am on Tuesday morning at Roselands Shopping Center in southwest Sydney – with a poignant photo emerging of a police officer tenderly cradling the baby girl (pictured)
Dramatic footage of that incident, obtained exclusively by Daily Mail Australia, showed police officers using a hammer and baton to smash the Honda hatchback’s passenger-side window in a Dee Why car park on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.
Alarmed customers had called emergency services after seeing the two children alone and tied up in the back of the locked car sometime after 2pm.
Both children were removed from the car unharmed with new footage captured in the aftermath of the dramatic rescue, which shows a female police officer cradling the youngest child.
The driver, a young woman who rushed back to the car with her shopping to find it surrounded by police and onlookers, was approached by officers at the scene and still faces possible jail time.
NSW Police confirmed on Tuesday that officers have ‘not yet’ charged the woman, but that she could be liable under the Child and Youth Care and Protection Act.
If charged and convicted of failing to care for a child, she could be fined up to $22,000 or jailed for six months.
NSW law provides that a person who leaves a child or young person in their care in a motor vehicle without proper supervision for such a period of time that the child becomes emotionally distressed or physically disabled is guilty of a misdemeanor.
The witness who captured the dramatic incident on camera told Daily Mail Australia that they saw NSW NRMA roadside assistance arrive alongside Fire & Rescue.
The witness believed another onlooker called triple-zero after seeing the children inside.
The witness said the Honda’s driver had rushed back to the car with groceries and was “clearly in shock at what she saw.”
An officer takes a hammer, then baton to the passenger-side window of a woman’s Honda hatchback after customers reported seeing two children in the locked vehicle at Dee Why’s on Monday
A woman returns to the car with three bags of groceries after police successfully rescued two children aged one and four from the locked hatchback on Monday afternoon
“It certainly wasn’t ‘cool’ in the parking garage, so it’s very dangerous to leave kids here alone,” the witness said.
It comes just weeks after a toddler died in a sweltering car in Glenfield in southwest Sydney, while shocked family members broke down on the spot.
Temperatures in the Glenfield area hit 34C on Feb. 2, the day the three-year-old was found in the vehicle outside a grocery store.
NSW police officers also had to smash a window to reach the child inside, but they were too late.
