DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — A Florida man was charged with child neglect on Monday after dropping off a rental car and apparently forgetting his one-year-old granddaughter was in the back seat.
The charges were felony child neglect, Volusia County public information officer Andrew Gant confirmed to USA TODAY.
David Towner, 62, had been babysitting his granddaughter for the day. He dropped off the car at the Daytona Beach International Airport and was picked up by his daughter.
The child was in the car for almost an hour before being found by a worker at the Hertz rental car facility, Volusia County sheriff’s investigators said in a statement.
On their way back to Towner’s home, his daughter asked about the baby and he told her the child was at his home with his roommate, according to his arrest report.
Meanwhile, an employee with the rental company checked the car and found the girl in the back seat of the 2019 Chevy Equinox, sheriff’s investigators said.
Deputies met an employee carrying the child. The child’s face was warm, streaked with dried tears but she was breathing normally, said sheriff’s spokesman Andrew Gant.
The temperature in the unshaded parking lot at the time of the incident was about 80 degrees, investigators said.
“The child was scared and hot, but thankfully in good health when checked by paramedics,” Gant said.
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Deputies and airport staff initially could not make contact with Towner but were alerted by 9-1-1 dispatchers that the child’s mother was on her way to the airport, officials said.
The woman told investigators her father told her he left the child at home but when she got to the house she did not see her daughter. She then learned her father had left her daughter in the rental car instead, Gant said.
The child was returned to her mother and the Department of Children and Families was notified of the incident, Gant said.
When deputies made contact with Towner, he was remorseful and cooperative with deputies, Gant said. Towner was charged with one count of child neglect, and was in the Volusia County Branch Jail on Tuesday on $2,500 bail.
Sheriff Mike Chitwood plans to give the Hertz rental car employee a citizens award, Gant said.
The Daytona Beach News-Journal
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