Cops Rescue Child From Hot Car, Chastise Mother — ‘She Could Have Died!’ [Video]

Most people know now not to leave children or pets inside a hot car in the parking lot while you run inside a store. But some parents still haven’t gotten the message. Thankfully for one young child trapped in a hot car in New Jersey, officers Richard Carrion and Sonya Bekier were there to rescue him.

According to the Huffington Post, the mother, Chaeyoung Lim-Kim, has been charged with endangering the welfare of a minor for leaving her toddler son inside a sweltering hot car. Before the boy died from heat stroke, as many children trapped in a hot car do, Bergen County Sheriff’s Officer Rich Carrion showed up in the Costco parking lot. He found the boy crying inside the vehicle, which had a window only slightly cracked. You can see in the video above as Carrion smashes the window and saves the child with the help of Sonya Bekier. The boy is found soaked from head to toe in sweat.

Carrion asks the bystanders where the parents are and is told they’re “shopping.”

“Are you f***ing kidding me?” says Carrion.

“She’s soaking wet!” says Bekier.

The officer didn’t realize at the time that the child was actually a boy with long hair.

When his 42-year-old mother Chaeyoung Lim-Kim shows up, the officer openly chastises her for leaving her son in the hot car. She apologizes continually, but the officers are visibly angry.

“No sorry,” Bekier replies. “She could have died!”

According to WABC, a witness claims Lim-Kim probably has left her children in a hot car in the past.

“I believe this is not the first time that she’s done this, because she took her older child with her that was maybe 4 or 5 years older, and the fact that she left the four windows cracked open. She knew what she was doing when she did it, and this time she got caught.”

According to NBC New York, Officer Carrion said the screams could be heard from inside the hot car, all the way across the parking lot.

“Before I even approached the vehicle, I could hear the child screaming and crying,” he said, “Knowing the severity of the temperature outside the vehicle, you can only imagine what it was like inside.”

Kids and Cars reports that an average of 38 children die in hot vehicles every year. Temperatures can easily rise to the 90s inside a hot car, which was the case in the Costco parking lot that day.

In the video below, you can see a man sealing himself in a hot car to see just how hot it gets.

Just last month, an infant died after being left in a hot car in Fort Lauderdale. Read more here.