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Woman charged with leaving dog in hot car in hospital parking lot

Healthcare Security Weekly, August 4, 2008

A teenager is facing charges after she allegedly left her Chihuahua in parked car for more than 45 minutes during one of the hottest days of the year while she visited a family member in a hospital emergency room.

The 19-year-old woman from Fitchburg, MA, was charged with animal cruelty, reported the Worcester Telegram and Gazette. Police were called to the UMass Memorial HealthAlliance Leominster campus parking lot on June 9 when temperatures soared to 98 degrees on a report of a dog that had been left in a car. Firefighters, security officers from the hospital, and a tow truck driver were trying to open the vehicle because the dog appeared to be in stress, the newspaper reported.

Security officers said an announcement was broadcast three times over the hospital’s public address system asking for the owner of the car to respond to the parking lot. A police officer was about to break the window of the car with his baton when the teenager came out of the hospital and screamed at him to get away from the vehicle. The dog recovered from the heat.

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