An investigation is underway after Spartanburg County deputies said a woman was found passed out in the front seat of a car with a 2-year-old child in the back seat.

According WYFF, a paramedic responded to a call about a woman passed out in the front seat of a car in Spartanburg County, South Carolina. When the paramedic arrived, he found a woman later identified as 39-year-old Lori Lawson in the driver’s seat.

The paramedic said that he repeatedly knocked on the window in an attempt to wake up Lawson, and when she finally woke up, he noticed that she smelled strongly of alcohol and that she was slurring her speech.

The paramedic then checked on the toddler in the back seat and found that her head was covered in lice.

A police report says that Lawson was “grossly intoxicated and under the influence of alcohol” at the time, according to WSPA.

Lawson and her daughter were both taken to a nearby hospital for medical evaluation.

The report states that Lawson’s speech was slurred and that she was having a hard time completing sentences. When she was asked what her daughter’s birth date was, she said 2013, before then changing her answer to 2014.

Lawson has been charged with unlawful neglect of a child and is currently being held in the Spartanburg County Detention Center. Her daughter has been placed in emergency protective custody.

Readers shared their thoughts on the incident on the Shared Facebook page.
“If you are to drunk to take care of a child that young. You don’t need them give it to someone who will take good care of her,” one Facebok user wrote. “You can’t treat your child hair but you can get drunk and past out. What did this child do to deserve this nothing. She a child!”

“Many are asking for the mother to be charged, the daughter taken away because she was found drunk & passed out: yet when a heroin addict is found passed out, near death at the wheel & children in the vehicle, its all around sympathy,” another reader commented. “I personally think no child should have to deal with the parents addiction, no matter the drug or drink. if the addiction is out of control take the child from the parent til they get straighteneed out. I have been there, dealt with it & my children are better because of it. our lives were turned upside down but I came out a better person for my kids & they learned that drugs & alcohol isnt worth the devestation it put our family thru.”

“So sad for both of them the mother really needs help and hopefully the child is young enough to go on and have a better life with people who will love her,” another user wrote.

Source: americanow.com