INLSA
Sandile Ngcobo, from Malandelas Security, said that the couple who found the baby had parked their car at 11.30am, when they heard crying.
Durban – A Durban father has been charged with endangering the life of his child after he left his six-month-old daughter inside his car parked on the Pavilion Shopping Mall’s rooftop, apparently while he went to buy a pizza.
The baby was spotted by a passing couple and a car guard who alerted the mall’s security.
Westville police spokesman Stephen Clark said that the father was arrested at the scene on Friday. The baby was removed by the police after she was examined by paramedics and, it is understood, later reunited with her mother.
Sandile Ngcobo, from Malandela’s Security, said that the couple who found the baby had parked their car at 11.30am, when they heard crying.
“They did not know where the cries were coming from,” he said.
As they looked around, the husband saw the baby in the locked car parked in the open without shade.
Ngcobo ran to the scene when he was alerted by a car guard.
“The man and I tried to force open the windows, but we failed,” he said.
It was hot and they could see the baby sweating, even though one window was slightly open.
Ten minutes later, after they agreed to break a window, a man carrying a pizza and juice arrived and identified himself as the father.
“He asked us why we were standing around his car,” the guard said.
Ngcobo said the concerned passer-by confronted the father, asking how he could “lock up his baby in the car and leave her unattended, alone, in the heat, while he went shopping in the mall”.
“But the father was only interested in his car and did not even bother asking about his daughter.”
The man who had found the baby became so emotional that he banged on the car’s windscreen, and cracked it.
Ngcobo moved the child and phoned ER24 paramedics and the police. The child was perspiring and feeling hot, he said.
“Even when the police arrived, the father wanted the man to pay for his windscreen and was not interested in his baby.”
ER24 spokesman Derrick Banks said on Monday that it was “very dangerous” to leave a child or pet unattended in a car.
“If it is hot, the child can dehydrate and lose consciousness, which can be fatal,” said Banks.
The Mercury
