Mom Locks 14-Month-Old In Hot Car To Play Bingo, Toddler Suffers Life-Altering Injuries

A mother in Melbourne, Australia, was accused of leaving her 14-month-old son in a hot car for almost five hours while she played Pokies and Bingo at a pub.

The incident took place on Jan. 15 when Kaija Millar, 34, left her son Easton alone in a hot car outside The Brook hotel at Point Cook. The car's windows were rolled up and there was no air conditioning while the temperature reached a scorching 98.6 Fahrenheit on that day.

After she returned from the pub, Millar saw her toddler son was fitting, his skin "grey-blue" and his eyes were wide open, prosecutor Neil Hutton said during the woman's sentencing Tuesday, according to News.com.au.

The child was rushed to a hospital with severe heatstroke and kidney failure, requiring him to undergo dialysis, and had to be placed in the intensive care for a long time, the publication reported.

The child is now blind, has a severe brain injury, cannot sit up by himself and is unable to speak, 9 News reported.

During a pre-sentence hearing, Millar gave conflicting statements to the police and insisted that it was bushfire smoke that was responsible for her son's ordeal.

When the paramedics arrived after the child was found in a dire state, Millar falsely told them he was in the car since 12:30 p.m. whereas she arrived at the pub at 9:50 a.m., the publication reported. Millar allegedly shouted: "He’s going to die, he’s going to die, don’t die bubba," after finding him.

She had also reportedly asked the medics not to tell her husband. Millar told paramedics that the windows of the car were open and she was checking on the child every two hours, but the CCTV footage falsified her claims.

Millar's lawyer Michael Allen told the court she was suffering from postnatal depression, had cognitive impairment with a low IQ and was struggling to cope at the time, according to News.com.au. Allen urged the court not to give Millar a jail sentence. She is scheduled to be sentenced later this month.

The prosecutor said that Millar told paramedics, "I just want him to survive because I don’t want to go to jail." The woman acknowledged during her hearing that she caused "severe and lifelong" injuries to her only child but she was "utterly overwhelmed" by the demands of motherhood.