3 Kids In Burning Car Rescued At Walmart After Mom Went Inside To Shop

Three kids in a burning car were rescued by passersby in a Walmart parking lot on Friday. Their mother left them in the vehicle so she could do some shopping at the store located in Bradford, Pennsylvania, New York Daily News reports. Thirty-two year old Stacey Nelson will be charged as early as Tuesday, Foster Township Police Chief Tom Munn says. The ages of the children are 10, 3, and 2. None of them were injured in the fire.

According to in-depth coverage by The Bradford Era, the 10-year-old girl was playing with a lighter in the front passenger seat around 1:30 pm. Some papers caught on fire and she “tried to get it out, but it was too late,” police explain.

Munn goes on to say that passersby in the Walmart parking lot saw what was happening and rescued the children from the unlocked SUV. Volunteer members of the Derrick City Fire Department arrived and extinguished the blaze, which caused severe interior damage to the vehicle.

Nelson was inside the store while her kids were in the burning car. She admitted to police that she left them unsupervised to shop for “about five minutes.” The officer explained to the mother that it’s not legal for a 10-year-old to be left alone with smaller children. The police officer who responded to the scene asked the girl if she meant to start the lighter and she said she “wanted to see what it would do.” Authorities told the girl it’s not safe to play with lighters and that someone could have been seriously injured from her playing with it.

Munn alerted the Children and Youth Services (CYS) and reported the incident. Munn added that the kids are lucky no one got hurt in this situation.

A very similar report was just published on Inquisitr about a man in New Jersey who left his two young children in a hotel so he could go shopping on Black Friday. A 4-year-old boy and an 11-year-old disabled girl stayed behind at the hotel so their father could pick up their mom from an outlet mall. He wound up going shopping with her instead.

Stacey Nelson will face some kind of charge for leaving her three children unattended, The Bradford Era reports. It’s unknown if the mother was aware that leaving a 10-year-old with younger kids was a bad thing to do. Fortunately, the kids who were in the burning car are all okay.

[Photo Credit: Commons Wikimedia]