A woman allegedly left her 8-month-old boy alone in a hot car for an hour while she auditioned for a job in a strip club.
Deputies arrested Ladale Jane Bowman, 23, on Tuesday after another dancer at the club found the infant."He was just crying and screaming and gasping for air," said the dancer, Teresa Chavez. "It just broke my heart."
The temperature outside the car was 86 degrees, said Elisa Gamallo, a spokeswoman for the Tulsa County Sheriff. The National Weather Service in Norman estimated the temperature inside the car was at least 100.
"She claimed her husband was watching the baby, but nobody ever saw a husband and we haven't found a husband," Gamallo said.
Chavez at first thought she heard a cat meowing but then saw the baby in the car's back seat. When she opened the unlocked car door, a wave of hot air hit her in the face, she said.
She said she took the child into the club's air-conditioned entryway and told another dancer to get a cold, wet rag to put on him.
Bowman was in jail Wednesday on $25,000 bail on a felony complaint of child endangerment.
The baby was given fluids in a hospital and released into state custody.