Parents are supposed to love their children and support them; however, there are parents who chose the negative side. One Florida mother was arrested after authorities discovered that she was starving her son, who was so hungry that he would try to eat his own hands.

The Department of Children and Families was called to investigate a Florida home on suspicion of child neglect. There, they found , a Volusia County mother whose five year-old son was so malnourished and underweight that he wasn’t on any medical charts for children of his age.

The boy was found dehydrated, extremely thin and eating small pieces of cereal off of the floor. Hall admitted that she would go days without feeding him and that she didn’t give him his medication, either. The boy, who has unspecified special needs, could not walk, talk, or stand. He had not received any kind of education and could not communicate. According to Hall, she knew he was hungry because he would start to eat his own hands.

When he was taken to the Child Protection Team Office, he was found to weigh only 25 pounds. He was then taken to a hospital, where he was found to be covered in blisters and peeling skin. Doctors estimated that he had not been bathed in a significant amount of time. He was taken into the ICU to be monitored for potential seizures or cardiac arrest.

Hall has since been arrested for child neglect, but she wasn’t the only one living in the home. Her husband also lived there, along with two other children. Officials have not revealed the status of the other two children, or if they were also victims to similar levels of child neglect. It’s also not known if her husband will likewise be charged.

Sources: WKMG, KMOV, Orlando Sentinel / Photo credit: Gustavo Castillo/Wikimedia Commons, Daytona Beach Police Department via KMOV, WFTV via MyAJC