Toddler found playing on highway

Quote:

Originally posted at http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/31/hig...rss_topstories
INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (AP) -- Drivers swerved cars and trucks into other lanes to avoid a 3-year-old boy, wearing only a diaper and T-shirt, who was playing along a busy highway after wandering away from home while his mother slept, police said.

Some motorists stopped along Interstate 465 on the city's west side Saturday to take care of the boy until officers arrived, the Indiana State Police said.

The boy, Damon Dyer, was unscathed as at least a half-dozen cars and a tractor-trailer rig swerved into other lanes to avoid him. Temperatures were in the mid 50s as the boy ran around barefooted.

Police said they traced the toddler to an apartment at a nearby complex, where they found his mother, Nancy Dyer asleep in a filthy apartment and his 2-year-old sister eating spaghetti off the floor.

Dyer, 33, was arrested on two counts of child neglect and remained in custody Sunday, officials said.

Senior State Trooper Cedric Merritt said that when Dyer was told of her son's activities, she responded: "Oh, he got out again."

Investigators said the boy got out his second-story apartment, went down stairs and got around a fence to reach the highway about 200 yards away.

It boggles my mind that someone can give birth to a child, then so blatantly disregard their safety and not look out for their wellbeing. I'd give her the benefit of the doubt and say she was an exhausted single mother trying to raise two kids by herself, but it doesn't sound like it (even cutting through the media glitz).

Opinions on child neglect? It's the blanket charge to cover when kids get out or when we don't like the living conditions a kid is in, and I'm split on the issue myself.

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Plus there's the fact that you don't always notice obstacles in the roadway until you're practically on top of them. Don't know how many times I've had to swerve out of the way of an errant animal, and wouldn't have been in a position to simply pull off and take care of them even if I wanted to.

There's nowhere I can't reach.