PARKER — Police say a 1-year-old girl spent 11 minutes inside a 135-degree car Thursday afternoon while her mom was in a salon tanning bed.
The child’s mother said she expects to be punished for the incident.
Imene Nouis, 31, was cited for child abuse and released with her daughter. “I had a bad judgment,” Nouis said Friday. “Obviously, I’m going to be punished for it.”
Nouis, who would not do an on-camera interview at her doorway Friday in Parker, had her smiling infant daughter in her arms.
Police said Nouis went to the At the Beach Tanning Salon on Main Street in Parker just after 1 p.m. Thursday. Another tanning customer noticed the baby inside the car and notified workers.
“I put my ear against the driver-side window and I could hear the baby crying,” At the Beach employee Daniel Rohn said.
Rohn figured out that the baby’s mother was inside a tanning bed.
The customer who noticed the baby called police.
When Parker police arrived, officers escorted Nouis outside to unlock her car and get her daughter.
“The windows were rolled up,” Officer Sherry Corcoran said.
The baby was sweaty but OK. Police determined she had spent 11 minutes in the car by looking at the time on her mom’s tanning bed.
They re-created how hot it was in the car by closing it up for 11 minutes and placing an infrared thermometer, borrowed from the city’s animal-control department, on the child’s seat inside. “It was 135 degrees in the vehicle,” Corcoran said.
Rohn said police were clearly upset with Nouis and “let her know that. She just said, ‘I’m a good mother and I felt like it was OK, she was sleeping, and I didn’t want to wake her up.’ “
Nouis admitted her mistake.
“It’s just a misjudgment,” she said. “It’s like anybody that drinks and drives and ends up hurting, injuring, or killing somebody. Are they bad people? No. Will they be blamed for it? Yes.”
