We are all warned about the dangers of leaving our pets in the car on hot days. Owners are rightfully shamed if even they leave a helpless dog or cat locked in a sweltering car. So can you imagine the shock one Florida police officer got after discovering a mother had locked her toddler in their car overnight?
Also, keep in mind this happened in Florida, so it would have been hot inside that car. In fact, it was so hot that the poor toddler was found unconscious and the officer feared she was dead. Luckily, thanks to the quick thinking of the officer, the little girl's life was spared. Here's what happened.
On June 17, Father's Day, Seminole County Deputy Bill Dunn discovered a three-year-old girl unconscious in a parked car. She had been left overnight alone, locked in the car in the extreme heat, without her mother anywhere to be found.
According to Jan Null, a professor at San Francisco State University, "Children have died in cars with the temperature as low as 63 degrees. Basically, the car becomes a greenhouse. At 70 degrees on a sunny day, after a half hour, the temperature inside a car is 104 degrees. After an hour, it can reach 113 degrees.”
Dunn sprung into action and broke into the car to rescue the little girl. He carried her in his arms, cradling her head, and placed her down inside his police cruiser with the air conditioner blasted. It wasn't until a few moments later, when he caught a flutter in her eyelids, that he knew she was alive.
"Sadly, I didn’t think she was alive when I got to her. I felt for a pulse, I didn't feel a pulse," Dunn told Fox 13. "Once the cold air hit her, that's when I started noticing her eyes kind of fluttering," he added.
Dunn then turned on his sirens and drove the little girl to the emergency entrance of a hospital. He can be seen in his body cam footage placing her on a stretcher and telling her "It's OK, baby. Talk to me! You're OK". Dunn, who is also a father, waited for three hours to ensure the little girl would be okay.
The entire heroic incident was caught on Dunn's body cam and police cruiser dash cam. The footage ends with Dunn returning to his car after, exhausted after an adrenaline-fueled day.
"It was a heck of a thing to experience that adrenaline dump. And then when it finally goes away, how it really does affect the body," he said. "Sometimes we’re able to have a moment like this that makes it all worthwhile." Dunn certainly is one of the good guys, that's for sure.
As for the girl's mother, 33-year-old Casey Dylan Keller, it turns out that she tried to claim that her car had been stolen with her child inside. However, police would learn that she had gone on a liquor run and forgotten to return for her daughter.
The car was in the parking lot of her apartment complex and the girl was found still left in her car seat. Keller has since been arrested and charged with child neglect causing great bodily harm and is held on a $15,000 bail.
A few days after the incident, the little girl's father called the Sherrif's office, asking to speak with Dunn so he could thank him for his heroic actions.
Dunn was actually able to reunite with the little girl and said, "It was good for me, it was healthy for me to be able to see her healthy and up running and acting like a three-year-old should act."
What a happy ending to what could have been a very sad and tragic story. We need more people like Deputy Bill Dunn in this world. We wish him and the little girl all the best.
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