FORT LAUDERDALE — A father and aunt left a 3-month-old girl in a car with the windows up in 93-degree heat, returning to find her unconscious, authorities say. They now face criminal charges.
John Polidor, 42, of Margate, and Rose Belony, 40, of Pompano Beach, were arrested Monday night on charges of child neglect without great bodily harm, a third-degree felony.
The father and his sister-in-law had arrived at the Enterprise car rental on North State Road 7 in Fort Lauderdale shortly before noon on Monday, according to the probable cause affidavit. They headed inside to inquire about purchasing a car, leaving the baby girl strapped in her car seat with the windows up, the car not running.
The car did not have tinted windows, the affidavit says, and Polidor and Belony had parked it on blacktop pavement, in the sun. Detectives later found that the official temperature at the time was 93 degrees, but the “feels-like” temperature that day was 109 degrees, part of South Florida’s ongoing heat wave. The National Weather Service had issued a heat advisory that day.
The girl remained in the car, alone, for 32 minutes. No one checked on her.
Finally, Polidor returned to take his daughter out of the car and bring her inside with him. A witness who saw the girl described her face as “flush sun-burnt red,” according to the affidavit, while she appeared “visibly not conscious but breathing.”
Witnesses tried to call 911, but Pollidor and Belony told them they didn’t want 911 involved and they would take the girl home, according to the affidavit. Witnesses also asked for the child’s milk bottle so that she could have some fluids, but Pollidor and Belony said they didn’t have it with them.
Witnesses called 911 anyway, and deputies responded to the scene 12 minutes later.
The extent of the girl’s heat illness, and whether she was hospitalized, remains unclear. Part of the affidavit is redacted, citing “medical records.”