A woman was arrested in Southwest Florida after reportedly leaving her 2-year-old son alone in a running car while she went swimming for nearly 45 minutes at a fishing pier, which is located on Pine Island.
Allison Sarah Daugherty, 41, was booked at the Lee County Jail and is being charged with one count of child neglect – leaving a child unattended in a motor vehicle for an excess of 15 minutes, according to NBC2.
Daugherty parked her car near the pier Monday morning, turned up the radio volume and jumped into the water, a witness told the Lee County Sheriff’s Office. A small boy was inside the car, according to the source, which was still running and had the air conditioning on.
People called out to Daugherty to warn her that their fishing hooks were in the water, along with sharks, according to the arrest report. Undeterred, the mother yelled back that she didn’t care about the hooks. The report said “She wanted to get hooked,” and “She would want to meet sharks.”
When deputies arrived, Daugherty started swimming further away from the coast and a Boca Grande Marine Unit had to go out and bring her back to shore, the NBC affiliate reported.
Jenny Wray, a staff member at a nearby restaurant, told NBC2 that they had seen the mother in the area for a few days and had concerns about the young boy.
“We called the sheriff’s office; she didn’t seem drunk. She didn’t seem intoxicated,” she said, “Something was just off.”
“He was a sweet little boy, very well-behaved,” Wray added. “He sat and ate and watched tv like oblivious to what was going on, thank god.”
They fed the boy lunch while they waited for a family member to come and pick him up, with Wray saying, “If it was me and that was the situation, I would want somebody to take my baby in and make sure he is safe.”
The woman’s mugshot did not suggest that she was overly concerned about her child.
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Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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