Video shows Arizona distraught mom after baby found in hot car: 'I don't know how I forgot her'
The mother said she was distracted and forgot the 5-month-old in the car.
Police body-camera footage captured a distraught Arizona mom after she said she accidentally left her 5-month-old daughter in a hot car.
The little girl was rescued and was OK after the June incident in Goodyear.
In the newly-released video, officers rushed to a parking lot to find the mother, Stacey Holly, crying and holding her baby.
Holly said she had been distracted and forgot the 5-month-old in the car on the 100-degree day, according to Goodyear police. Holly's sister told the officers they got out of the car and went into Target without looking in the backseat.
"I don't know how we forgot her, but we just forgot her," Holly told an officer, according to body camera footage. "I'm freaking out, I'm sorry, I just, I don't know how it happened. How do you forget your baby?!"
"There was no reason for this to happen, it just happened," Holly said, overcome with emotion.
Holly and her sister returned to the car and got the baby out of the vehicle. It was unclear how long the baby was in the car.
The baby was taken to a local hospital but was physically fine, officials said.
"These people who do it, who you see on TV, [I'd think,] oh my God, how stupid are they to leave their kids in their car?' And then it happened," Holly later told a detective. "I cannot give you an answer ... I don't know how I forgot her.
"I'm glad I got arrested," she told the detective. "This is a very eye-opening experience for me."
Holly, 37, was booked on June 16 and was charged with child abuse and endangerment, according to police.
She has pleaded not guilty. She is scheduled to appear in court again on Sept. 19.
Her defense attorney did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment on Thursday.
Nationwide, 35 children have died in hot cars so far this year, including 10 deaths in August, according to national nonprofit KidsAndCars.org.
The group is advocating for Congress to pass the Hot Cars Act to require rear occupant alarm technology in cars.
"Without technology to detect the presence of a child inside a vehicle, hot car tragedies will continue to happen week after week because nobody believes this could happen to them," Amber Rollins, director of KidsAndCars.org, told ABC News via email on Monday. "Automakers have the ability to eradicate hot car deaths of young children. The Hot Cars Act needs to be passed right away. What are we waiting for?"
Click here for a list of hot car safety tips.
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