Surveillance video shows a Good Samaritan rushing a distressed baby left in a hot vehicle into a department store in New Jersey earlier this week. Fifty-three-year-old retired police officer Steven Eckel saved the 4-month-old baby’s life. They carried her into an air conditioned store to cool off and the child’s mother, who was asking where her child was when she returned to the auto after being gone for about 40 minutes, has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child.
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“The baby appeared to be in a great deal of distress – screaming, crying, bright red and sweating profusely”, Antunez said. When she came outside and noticed the broken window and empty auto seat, she started panicking.
Reports say that the baby was flushed and pouring sweat but otherwise okay, so Eckels made his rescue just in time.
Steve Eckel and the infant police say he pulled from a hot auto in Howell Monday, Aug. 30, 2016.
Steven Eckel, 53, said the baby girl was in distress Monday when he and another woman spotted her screaming in the backseat of a vehicle in a shopping center’s parking lot. “She was half covered in a blanket and in a panic”, Mazzone told News12 New Jersey.
“I ran up and tried to open the doors but they were locked”, Eckel said.
Eckel unlocked the Sentra and removed the baby from the auto with the assistance of Sarah Mazzone, a patron who happened to be walking by the vehicle the same time as Eckel.
“I nearly started to cry, I got really emotional at that point”, he said. “After something like this happens, you act on it and think about it later”.
Eckel recalled the conversation between her and one of the police officers.
“The bottom line is it’s about being human”, said Eckel.
Authorities arrested the girl’s mother, 33-year-old Karen Gruen, on one count of endangering the welfare of a child.
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A woman accused of leaving her baby inside her auto on a sweltering day in a department store parking lot is a teacher with the Lakewood School District, police said.
