A woman is being hailed a hero after she smashed a car window to rescue a toddler that had been locked inside a car in searing temperatures.
Sarah Oropeza, was working inside a store in Merriam Kansas on Monday when she was alerted that there was a toddler sitting in a locked car in the scorching 37 degree heat.
When Sarah, a mother herself, went outside to inspect what was going on she saw that all the windows were up and she couldn’t see the child’s parent in sight.
“The windows were totally rolled up, all the doors were locked. She was covered in sweat,” Sarah told KCTV 5.
Sarah says she saw that the little girl in the car was very obviously in distress.
“She had pulled her hair back and sweat was just dripping,” Sarah said.
After assessing that the child was likely sitting deadly temperatures Sarah ran into the store where she worked and screamed to her colleagues for help.
In a panic Sarah tried to pry the doors open with a screw driver but then another concerned bystander handed her a tire iron and Sarah began trying to smash the window to get in.
“I was just praying, ‘Break the window. She is going to die,’” Sarah recalls.
Eventually the window did give and the little girl was freed from the car.
Kristy Scales, who filmed the incident, told Fox 4 that Sarah and the women who tried to help her were heroic.
“They got the baby out and all you could see was her ponytail and sweat coming from the end,” Kristy said.
A nurse who was near the car park helped care for the child until an ambulance arrived.
Sarah Oropeza on KCTVS.
After the incident, Sarah took to Facebook to thank the strangers who helped her in the dramatic rescue.
“Thank you again everyone for your kind words. i was just doing the right thing. and thank you to the two women who brought me the screw driver and tire iron. and thank you to Diana Piseno who brought the hitch and broke the window!!!!! there was also a nurse there who helped with taking care of the baby once the baby was out! she helped everyone calm down! and big thanks to my co worker Porscha who saw the baby in the car and ran in to tell me! They all deserve as much credit!!!! if i could tag them I totally would. but i never got their names! and porscha doesnt have facebook lol THEY ARE MY HEROS.”
The little girl was reportedly left in the car by her aunt and uncle who were running some errands and in a cell phone store nearby. Sarah said the pair showed “no emotion at all, whatsoever,” when they returned to try and collect the girl from the shoe store where she worked.
“The only question they had for police was if insurance was going to pay to cover the window that we broke,” Sarah told KCTV 5.
The unnamed pair reportedly claimed to authorities that the little girl unattended for four minutes but considering children’s body temperatures climb at a rate as much as five times faster than adults, according to NoHeatStroke.org, even a short amount of time in a hot car can be fatal.
According to People.com, the couple was ticketed for child endangerment.
