Leaving a living child or animal in a hot car is an easy way to get your window smashed, but leaving a fake baby may have the same result. That happened in New Hampshire recently, and reports say an officer “noticed something was off” when he began CPR on an infant he rescued. That’s because it was a doll.
The officer, Lt. Jason Short, responded to a 911 call reporting an infant left in a hot car outside of a Keene, New Hampshire Walmart in July, according to local news station WMUR9. Short told WMUR9 he “got there as soon as [he] could,” seeing what appeared to be a lifeless child in a carseat. Short said he saw a bottle of milk in the car and a light blanket draped over the infant, prompting him to shatter the window with his baton.
He then noticed that the infant “looked lifeless, looked dead.” That’s because it was, but perhaps not in the way he thought.
As Short put a finger in the “lifeless” infant’s mouth to begin CPR, he realized it was, indeed, a doll. According to WMUR9, the fake baby is known as a “reborn doll” meant to look just like a real child. The doll is reportedly worth more than $2,000, and its owner, Carolynne Seiffert, has collected about 40 of them over recent years as a way to cope with the death of her son. From WMUR9:
In a statement, Seiffert said: “I’ve been laughed at and embarrassed by all the fuss. You can’t know how people choose to deal with their losses in life.”
Seiffert said she’s upset about the damage to her car, but Short said he couldn’t take the chance.
“I would never assume that it’s a doll,” Short said. “I would always assume that it’s a child. I would never do anything different.”
WMUR9 reports that the police chief told Seiffert the department would pay for the damage to her vehicle, and Seiffert took some precaution to make sure it doesn’t happen again—she purchased a custom bumper sticker for the car to warn passerby that the infant isn’t real.