Baby found left in returned rental car at Daytona Beach International Airport (Video)

Employees at a car rental lot at Florida’s Daytona Beach International Airport discovered a toddler who was left in the back seat of a returned vehicle for about 45 minutes Monday evening, October 10.  The child was scared and hot, but thankfully in good health after being checked out by paramedics.

According to the Volusia Sheriff’s Office, Deputies assigned to the airport responded to the Hertz rental lot around 6 p.m. on Monday after a Hertz Rent-A-Car employee reported the toddler was found in a locked vehicle in the car return lot. Deputies arrived to find the employee carrying the child, whose face was warm and streaked with dried tears, but was breathing normally.

The vehicle had been returned at 5:13 p.m. on Monday. Deputies and airport staff initially were unable to make contact with the driver. Then a call came in from the child’s mother, who had just learned her father had left her daughter in the rental car – not at his home, as he’d told her.

The mother was on her way to the airport immediately to be reunited with her child, who is just under the age of two.

Through interviews and airport security video footage, detectives confirmed that 62-year-old David Towner of Port Orange had been babysitting his granddaughter for the day and left her in the rental vehicle when he returned it. Towner was remorseful and cooperative with deputies. He was charged with one count of child neglect and transported to the Volusia County Branch Jail.

A judge ordered him released on $2,500 bond and he is to have no contact with his granddaughter, according to WESH.

Hertz offered the following statement about the incident: “We’re grateful for the actions of our Hertz teammates and glad the child is safe.”

The temperature in the unshaded parking lot at the time of the incident was about 80 degrees.

The child was returned to her mother and the Department of Children and Families was notified of the incident. Sheriff Mike Chitwood will be issuing citizens awards to the Hertz employees involved in the incident.

For more on the story, see the vid accompanying this article.

(Source: Volusia Sheriff’s Office)

Posted by Richard Webster, Ace News Today   /   Follow Richard on Facebook and Twitter