Disney maid: I left girl in car to ask for time off
A woman arrested after a toddler was found in her sweltering car Monday told the Orlando Sentinel she left the child while she went into a Walt Disney World resort, where she works as a housekeeper, to try to get her manager’s approval to take the afternoon off to care for the girl.
Myriam Lubincadet, 37, said she agreed to babysit the 2-yearold girl while the child’s mother was in labor. She said she picked up the child and left her about 12:15 p.m. in the car in the employee parking lot of Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa.
The temperature in the child safety seat in which the girl was found was 113.5 degrees by the time another employee found her “crying and sweating profusely” about 1:05 p.m., according to an arrest affidavit.
“I love her,” said Lubincadet, who said Tuesday she’s a cousin of the child’s father. She said she spoke to him and “everything is ok.”
Lubincadet, of Orlando, said she just meant to leave the girl for about five minutes while she talked to her manager. When she found her manager, she said he told her he’d been told about the girl left alone in the car and said he thought she was in trouble. The girl was found in the locked car and the windows were partially down. The girl’s temperature was 97.1 degrees, according to the affidavit.
She was taken to Florida Hospital Celebration Health where she was in stable condition, deputies said.
Lubincadet was arrested on suspicion of child neglect and was taken to the Orange County Jail. Bond was set at $1,000, which she posted Tuesday.
Disney did not respond to requests for comment.