Kids saved from hot car
A woman who left two young children in a parked car while she went shopping on a 33-degree Celsius day in Napier has been reported to Oranga Tamariki.
Chrystal Alatasi came across the children in the car parked at a suburban supermarket about 4.30pm on Sunday.
‘‘I’d just been shopping, got back in my car, wound my windows down, started my car up, and I heard a baby cry.
‘‘I looked around for where this baby was. It was a distressed cry. I’m a mum of four, so I know the difference,’’ she said.
‘‘I looked across and saw this black Subaru with tinted windows. If it wasn’t for one of the babies raising their hand or foot . . . I’d never have seen them. I could just make out movement.’’
The windows of the car were closed. Alatasi couldn’t see any adults around so put her face up to the window to look in.
‘‘I saw two babies in the back seat. One was 4 or 5. The other one, a boy, was younger. I called 111 and told the person I was thinking about smashing a window. The woman said ‘ask the girl to open the door for you’ . . . so I said: ‘can you open the door sweetheart’,’’ Alatasi said.
‘‘Man, the heat that came out of that car . . . by that stage the car alarm was going off and the kids were screaming. They were really, really upset.’’
Alatasi said it was half an
‘‘Children should not be left in cars.’’ Hawke’s Bay medical officer of health Dr Nick Jones
hour before the woman, who she believed to be the children’s mother, turned up.
‘‘I was up in her face. I was so furious. I was shaking and crying myself by that stage.’’
A police officer arrived about five minutes later.
Alatasi said the officer took her details and said he would contact her later, which he did.
‘‘He said to me she was really upset and he tried to calm her down before sending them on the way to get the children cooled down,’’ Alatasi said.
A police spokesman said the ‘‘offender’’ was given a formal warning for leaving children unaccompanied and a report would be made to Ministry for Children Oranga Tamariki.
Hawke’s Bay medical officer of health Dr Nick Jones said leaving children in hot cars was potentially fatal.
‘‘Children should not be left in cars . . . as heat quickly builds up in parked cars and . . . children can become over heated and in extreme circumstances die.’’