Policeman saves girl from hot car, gets yelled at by angry mom

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A Chinese policeman, who injured himself trying to rescue an unconscious little girl trapped inside a car in smoldering heat, received an unexpected blow after the mother of the child berated him for breaking the window of her vehicle.

The incident took place last week when a passerby spotted a girl, around the age of five or six, lying motionless inside an enclosed vehicle parked on roadside in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province.

Photo via Huaxi Metropolis Daily

"The witness said the car had been parked for half an hour when he spotted the girl inside," Yin Yufeng, the police officer who responded to the scene, told local newspaper Huaxi Metropolis Daily. He added that the temperature had reached 36 degrees Celsius, noting that it would have been much higher inside the locked car.

His concerns are not unsubstantiated. A research center affiliated with China’s Ministry of Public Security estimates that the temperature inside a vehicle parked for 30 minutes in an outside temperature of 36 degrees Celsius could reach 52 degrees Celsius.

The consequences on a child in such precarious situation are menacing and, at times, fatal.

In high temperatures, children can suffer hyperthermia, dehydration and difficulty in breathing if left in closed cars in hot temperatures.

Photo via Huaxi Metropolis Daily

The policeman knocked on the car window and shouted in an attempt to wake the girl up. When he got no response, his worries escalated.

Treating the situation as an emergency, he used his flashlight to smash the window and free the girl. He managed to get the girl out, but not before he sustained an injury on his right hand due to broken glass.

Medics carried a physical check-up on the girl and luckily found no cause for alarm. The story was moving towards a happy ending, but little did Yin know, an even more serious disturbance was only minutes away.

The girl's mother, who arrived at the scene after her daughter was saved, showed little gratitude, and instead blamed the law enforcer for damaging her car.

"Who will pay to fix my car window?” she reportedly questioned.

Screenshots of netizens' comments on Weibo

The mother's spiteful attitude triggered scorching criticism on China's Twitter-like Weibo, with netizens slamming the mother for being careless and rude.

"Is shattering a car window not worth saving a child's life?" asked a user who goes by the name @liuyiqiu.

“Being a parent has not needed a certificate so far,” another user @kandianyingdedasheng said, implying that the mother does not have what it takes to be a parent.

Cases of children left inside vehicles by negligent parents have continuously been brought under the spotlight around the world, especially during summer.

While there are no specific numbers of such casualties in China, a total of 723 children trapped in vehicles have died of heatstroke since 1998 in the US, including 23 so far this year, according to No Heatstroke Organization which tracks the phenomenon in the US.