A woman in her 30s has been charged after police in southern Queensland were forced to break into a car to rescue a child.
The Queensland Police Service said officers were called to the scene after reports of a child left unattended at a shopping centre car park on Ruthven Street in Toowoomba at 5:20pm on Wednesday.
The child was taken to hospital for treatment after being rescued from the locked car.
The driver of the car was located a short time later and was taken into custody.
She has been charged with one count of endangering children by exposure and is expected to appear in Toowoomba Magistrates Court on February 22.
The child has since been discharged from Toowoomba Base Hospital.
Temperatures in Toowoomba peaked at 30 degrees Celsius on Wednesday afternoon and stayed in the high 20Cs into the evening.
A low-intensity heatwave is affecting most of south-east Queensland this week with temperatures averaging in the mid-30Cs, about 4C above average.
Heat stroke happens quickly
The RACQ said it received about five calls a day for help with children or animals locked in cars.
Manager of patrol operations Howard Strasser said it was never safe to leave children or animals unattended in a vehicle.
He said temperatures within cars could reach 50C within 10 minutes.
Mr Strasser said the effect on children or animals locked in cars would be devastating.
"The heat stroke is unbelievable and happens very quickly," he said.
"The other thing to consider is most of the children are in a car seat, so they can't move around to get any sort of cooling.
"It's very dangerous. We can't stress that enough."
Mr Strasser said many cases were accidental where children had been given the keys to the car to play with.
"Keep the keys on you at all times and make sure you don't leave your kids in the car at all," he said.
"Even when you're filling up the fuel. That's another common place where we see children locked in cars, so just be aware of those things."
Mr Strasser says bystanders who notice children or animals locked in a car, should call emergency services or the RACQ and stay with the vehicle to monitor the situation.
