Grandma charged in hot-car incident

A woman has been charged with child endangering after police said she left her twomonth-old granddaughter inside a hot car for 20 minutes outside the Walmart in Eaton on Wednesday.

Eaton police and medics responded to the Walmart at 100 East Washington Jackson Road around 7 p.m. and found an infant crying in the back seat of a sedan, Eaton Police Division Sgt. Eric Beeghly said.

Beeghly said officers attempted to open the door with a lockout tool, but were forced to break open a window to enter the vehicle.

Police said the child suffered no serious injuries and was taken to a local hospital where she was treated and released.

The grandmother, later identified as Vivian Floyd, 59, of Eaton, told investigators she was driving and dropped off the child’s mother at her home and thought the mother took the infant with her. Floyd said she continued to Walmart to shop not knowing her granddaughter was in the back seat.

Police charged Floyd with child endangering, but she was not arrested.

This is the second incident of a child being left in a hot car at Walmart in this state this week. A woman in Youngstown was charged for leaving her 5-month-old in the car for nearly an hour while she shopped.

In 2016, Gov. John Kasich signed a bill into law that protects the Good Samaritans who break their way into a locked vehicle.

Across the nation, an average of 35 children a year who are trapped in hot vehicles die.

On a 70-degree day, temperatures inside a car can reach 120 degrees.

After 10 minutes in 90-degree heat, temperatures in a car approach 110 degrees.

After an hour, the temperature inside can reach more than 130 degrees.

“If a child’s temperature reaches 107 degrees, that’s the danger zone where their body begins to shut down,” Jessica Saunders, director of the Center for Child Health and Wellness at Dayton Children’s Hospital, has said.