DENVER—A woman who left her two young children at a suburban Denver gas station and apparently wandered on foot for hours said Wednesday she doesn’t remember what happened and doesn’t know how she wound up 13 miles away.
Sarah Hatfield, 25, said doctors told her she may have suffered an amnesia episode tied to migraine headaches or had some other medical problem.
Hatfield’s two sons, ages 2 and 4, were found unharmed in her vehicle on Saturday afternoon in the north Denver suburb of Thornton. Social services officials later placed the children in care of family members.
Hatfield said she remembers pulling into the gas station and waiting in line for the pumps, and then found herself outside National Jewish Hospital in Denver at about midnight. She said she was dehydrated and sore with no idea of how she got there.
“I hurt. My head hurt. My hips. My whole body just hurt,” she told KUSA (). “I wanted help to know what was going on. ‘Were the kids OK? What happened? Why am I here? What’s going on?'”
She said her keys, wallet and cell phone were found in her vehicle. She borrowed a cell phone and called her husband, who notified officers searching for her since the children were found.
Sarah Hatfield was arrested on child-abuse charges.
Her husband, Matt, told KCNC ( ) he believes police will work with doctors and agree that this is a medical case and not a crime.
“She doesn’t have a criminal history,” he said. “She’s a loving mother.”
Hatfield said she has been having migraines since December, and recently they got worse. She said she is on a new medication that is helping.
She said she has never taken recreational drugs.
Hatfield said she was allowed to speak with her children by phone on Monday.
Her older son told her, “Mommy, you lost me,” she said. “It’s the only way he can understand that I wasn’t there.”
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Information from: KUSA-TV,
