A woman has been praised for her quick thinking when she saw a distressed child left in a car alone - but the mother wasn't so pleased.
The woman took to online forum, Reddit, to ask for advice after she heard crying outside her bedroom window. She made here way down to the car park and spotted an upset child inside a car, and checked in on the kid. The mother had left her child inside the car while she was inside her home, so the woman went to get help.
But soon the mum came out and the pair ended up in a heated confrontation, with the mother demanding the woman stay out of her business.
The woman was worried that she'd taken the situation too seriously, and doesn't deal well with confrontation.
Writing on Reddit, she said: "So I’m upstairs trying to relax and I’ve been listening to a young child screaming and crying at the top of her lungs 'Mommy, Mommy, I want Mommy, Mommy!'
"It goes on for at least 10 mins before I finally say what is going on and look outside to see a young girl alone in a car (yes the window was open) but I didn’t know the car was turned on with the air conditioning on.
"This is a condominium complex so I go outside to where the car is parked and I ask the child are you okay? Where’s your mum?
"She points at where her door is (which is fully closed) and says her mom is inside and then tells me she peed her pants.
"I say, I’m gonna go get her mom for her, and start to walk up to the door."
The woman continued: "As I’m walking the mother comes out, talking to someone on the phone, so I say to her “are you this girls mom?'
"She says yeah so I say she’s been crying and screaming and I was wondering if everything was alright.
"I'm assuming the mother saw me checking on her kid through the window and came out but who knows maybe she was coming out anyways?
"The mother immediately gets defensive telling me to get the f*** out of her face, she’s a single mom, she went inside for two seconds to get the girls socks, she’s dealing with a family emergency, and to mind my own business.
"I am taken aback at her outburst of course, so I get defensive and tell her she shouldn’t leave a child alone in a car, she says the car was running with the AC on so the girl is fine and I need to get the f*** out of her face.
"She’s very angry and I don’t like confrontation but I also got defensive and say it was more than two seconds and the poor girl was screaming bloody murder for gods sake, but then I start to walk away because I’m done at this point.
"Now again this is a condo complex so because she was swearing at me and yelling, anyone who was home could hear the confrontation and the I can hear the mother after I’m back inside telling whoever was on the phone about the whole thing and she’s obviously very p***** off."
The woman concluded: "Am I the a******? Technically the girl was fine, she was just crying and it’s not illegal to leave a child alone in a car, the AC was running and I couldn’t tell how old she was but she was at least five or six.
"Now, because everyone around heard the fiasco, I’m wishing I had just minded my own business and not made myself out to look like an a****** scolding a single mother for leaving her kid alone in a safe condominium complex for 10 mins."
Readers immediately jumped to the defence of the worried woman, and ensured her that she had done the right thing in looking for help for the distressed child.
One Reddit user wrote: "Congratulations. You may have saved that child.
"Leaving an open car running is an invitation for a car thief to jump in and drive away. And who knows what might happen to the child in that situation.
"I suspect that the mother knew she messed up, and tried to throw blame on you."
Another said: "She was screaming her head off for 10 minutes. How would anyone know she's okay? AC has nothing to do with it."
A third wrote: "The mum was neglecting her kid, leaving her for 10 minutes alone in a car in a condominium complex car park is just s***** parenting regardless of her circumstances."
A fourth added: "If you heard her screaming the mom definitely did, and should have come out. Well, firstly, she shouldn’t have left her child in the car. Poor little girl. Good for you for checking on her."
And another noted: "Better to risk a moment of embarrassment rather than the health and safety of a child.
"It is always better to check on the child."
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