MERRIAM, Kansas (CNN) – We hear the stories all too often about a child left locked in a hot car. It is a nightmare for any parent, but in Kansas Saturday, it wasn’t the child’s parents who came to the rescue. It was a local store manager who sprang into action.
In the cell phone video, you can hear and see the desperate attempts to break a car window. The woman beating against the window is Sarah Oropeza.
The manager at famous footwear was ringing someone up at 4:15 p.m., when one of her workers ran inside screaming for help.
“The windows were totally rolled up, all the doors were locked, she was covered in sweat. When I looked in the window, she pulled her hair back and sweat was just drip, drip, drip.” Oropeza said. “I was just getting so mad that it wouldn’t break, and I was just praying, like, ‘break the window, she’s gonna die.'”
The video only shows seconds of the two to three minutes Oropeza says it took to even get a crack. Every whack at the window felt like an eternity for the mom of two trying to save the girl’s life.
“She was crying, and she was like, she was drenched in sweat. Her shoes were wet, like, she was so drenched in sweat, and I just started crying,” Oropeza said.
Tears only turned to anger she says as the couple supposedly caring for the girl came inside the shoe store.
“No emotion at all whatsoever. They sat there, and the only question they had for police was is if insurance was going to pay to cover the window that we broke. That’s the only question that they asked the cops,” Oropeza said.
A nurse who was on the scene gave the 2-year-old medical care. The child was later picked up by her grandmother.
Police ticketed the couple for child endangerment.
