Children left in hot car alarms Winnipeg shopper

A Winnipeg woman says she was alarmed to see three young children left alone in a car, with the windows rolled up, outside a grocery store on a hot afternoon.

Lisa Afanasiev says she called police upon seeing the childrenina car in the parking lot of a Henderson Highway supermarket at 1 p.m. Tuesday.

Afanasiev estimated that all three children were under the age of five. One of them was a baby, she added.

"I could not believe there there were three children, and one was like a three-month-maybe-old baby. And the little boy in the front was sweating. I was just appalled," she told CBC News.

The discovery was alarming given the temperature outside was 30 C, said Afanasiev, who added that the temperature display inside her own vehicle was 34 C.

"Even a couple of minutes, like they say, the car temperature rises dramaticallyreally fast. So I don't care if it was five seconds," she said.

"But I was there 10 to 15 minutes; ten, minimum, for sure."

Woman seen driving away

Upon seeing the car's windows were closed and no one else was in the parking lot, Afanasiev said she called 911. She said the dispatcher advised her not to break the car's windows and not to confront the driver.

Afanasiev said shortly after 1:15 p.m., she saw a woman leave the store, get inside the car with the children inside and drive away.

Afanasiev said she noted the car's licence plate number and provided that information to police officers when they arrived a few minutes later.

Winnipeg police told CBC News that the car in question was registered to an individual from outside the city.

They have asked RCMP to contact the registered owner and warn him or her of the dangers of leaving children unattended inside a hot vehicle.

Afanasiev said the kind of heat that Winnipeggers are experiencing this week can be a severe risk to children left alone in a hot car.