A Colorado woman who left her infant daughter in her car while she was at a tanning salon admitted on Sept. 2 that she used bad judgment but denied she was a bad person. Police say her daughter, 1, spent about 11 minutes alone in the car, where temperatures reportedly reached 135 degrees. The woman is facing domestic violence charges in connection with the incident.

Police in Parker, Colorado, were called to the parking lot outside of At The Beach Tanning salon shortly after 1 p.m. on Sept. 1. A customer at the tanning salon had spotted an infant inside a car in the lot. The customer told workers at the tanning salon, one of whom went out to the car and heard the baby girl crying. When police arrived, they went inside the salon and found the infant's mother, who had been using a tanning booth for about 11 minutes. They escorted her to her car and she removed her daughter from the hot cabin.

Fortunately, the baby was sweaty but unharmed. Police said a thermometer later left in the enclosed car for 11 minutes as an experiment read 135 degrees.

In an interview the next day, the woman admitted that she made a mistake by leaving her daughter in the car. She said she had not wanted to wake up the child, who had fallen asleep on the way to the tanning salon. Still, she accepted responsibility and said she expected to be punished. A reporter for KUSA-TV noted that the infant appeared to be happy and healthy while her mother spoke.

Source: KUSA-TV, "Mom who went to tanning salon with baby in car: 'I had a bad judgment'," Matt Flener, Sep. 3, 2011