A phone call from a local resident Friday morning led Hyattsville Police Department officers to help a five-year-old girl get out of an increasingly hot car.

The girl was in a car parked in the 3800 block of Oliver Street in Hyattsville while her 29-year-old mother, a Glen Burnie resident as of yet unnamed by the Hyattsville Police Department, purportedly visited a home nearby. A window was left partially open for the girl.

Tweets from the department indicated the girl had been in the car for multiple hours; a resident of the neighborhood called police to let them know at around 8:40 a.m.

“I came out, and saw my neighbors. We were wondering whose kid was this. We didn’t know whose car it was, um, so we called the cops,” the unnamed neighbor told WTTG-TV.

Police, who referred to the caller repeatedly as a “good Samaritan,” were able to arrive on the scene and use the gap left by the open window to open the car door and let the child out.

The mother has now been arrested and charged with reckless endangerment, neglect, and leaving an unattended child confined in a vehicle. Child Protective Services has also been notified and will be investigating the girl’s situation further, Hyattsville police noted.

Given the mother’s arrest, the girl is in the custody of another family member for now.

In its series of tweets regarding the incident, HPD said that a cracked window was not sufficient for dealing with heat. At 8:52 a.m. Friday, the temperature in Hyattsville was 85 degrees Fahrenheit with 75% humidity, according to CustomWeather. 

That would have made the heat index, or how the temperature felt to someone outside in the elements, 95 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a National Weather Service heat index calculator. A heat advisory for the area was in place at the time of the incident.

“Even with a window partially down, temperatures rise quickly and can become deadly. Children, dependent adults and even pets should simply never be left alone in a vehicle during extreme temperatures,” an HPD tweet read.

Hyattsville Police Chief Jarod Towers credited the neighbors for calling, telling WTTG-TV that “We want to thank that person for taking the time, not just to notice something, but taking the time to care and make a difference, and ultimately, probably save this child’s life.”

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.