A retired police officer has come in for high praise this week, after saving a distressed tot left locked in a hot car, in the States.
Steve Eckel, 53, took immediate action when he came across the child who was ‘screaming so loud you could see her eyes rolling back’.
Eckel, from New Jersey, told local media outlet WCBS.com that the child was sweating ‘profusely’, with temperatures inside the car reaching ‘120 degrees’.
Eckel took a sledgehammer to the front passenger window and smashed it in, with passer-by Sarah Mazzone carrying the four-month-old little girl to the safety of a nearby store. The tot is now said to being doing ‘fine’.
The child’s mum approached the car when she saw what was happening, and it later emerged that the child had been inside for 40 minutes.
The woman, named as Karen Gruen, has now been charged with child endangerment.
In an interview, hero Eckel said: “I do believe in guardian angels, and I think that I’m the one for this child.”
Thank heavens this little one is OK.
