A grandad has been charged after dropping off a rental car - with his one-year-old granddaughter still in the back seat.
David Towner, 62, from Florida, returned his hire car to Daytona Beach International Airport in almost 30C heat when he was picked up by his daughter and returned home.
She began asking where her own child was - and the grandad assured her she was safely at his home with his roommate.
But when an employee from the rental car firm went to clean the vehicle, he found the girl in the back seat of the 2019 Chevy Equinox, according to investigators.
The. police were soon called to the airport where they were met with an employee carrying the child where she was said to be upset and had been crying.
Andrew Gant, a sheriff spokesman, said the young child's face was initially warm but she was breathing normally.
The child had been left in the car where temperatures in the car park were around 26C, which could have led to devastating consequences.
The police officer said: "The child was scared and hot, but thankfully in good health when checked by paramedics."
Car rental staff and the airport tried to get in contact with David to inform him he had left his grandchild in the car but they were unable to reach him.
However, a 911 call had alerted staff the child's mother was on her way to the airport to collect her distressed daughter.
The mum told police her dad had left her daughter at home but when she returned she could not find her child.
She soon realised the granddad had left her child abandoned in the car at the airport in sweltering heat when she rushed to collect her daughter.
The mum was thankfully reunited with her daughter after the Department of Children and Families were made aware of the situation.
The Volusia Sheriff Department wrote on Facebook : "Through interviews and airport security video footage, detectives confirmed that 62-year-old David Towner of Port Orange had been babysitting his granddaughter for the day and left her in the rental vehicle when he returned it.
"The temperature in the unshaded parking lot at the time of the incident was about 80 degrees. The child was returned to her mother."
Police went to speak to David who was cooperative and upset at what he had done, according to authorities.
On Monday he was charged with one count of child neglect and remains in the Volusia County Branch Jail on a $2,500 (£1,187) bail.
Volusia Sheriff Mike Chitwood has confirmed he will give the rental car company employee who found the one-year-old in the back of the car a citizens award for his discovery.
