A babysitter is facing charges after a toddler was found outside, in frigid weather, along a Dallas County roadway. The one-year-old boy was taken to the Dallas County Hospital by someone who found the child sitting along Highway 141 near Perry just before 4 p.m. Sunday. The temperature was 10 degrees, with a wind chill of 8-below zero. Sheriff’s deputies were sent to the hospital to investigate.
The boy’s babysitter, 31-year-old Catalina Ortiz-Ortega, arrived a short time later and told deputies she had been driving and heard the rear car door open and close but did not realize the child had fallen out of the moving vehicle. The boy was transported to Blank Children’s Hospital for further treatment before being released to his mother.
Ortiz-Ortega is charged with child endangerment and failure to have a valid driver’s license.