A healthcare company’s regional president and her husband are accused of ditching their 6-month-old daughter in their tent on the beach during her nap time while the rest of the family went on a long walk along the shore Friday afternoon.
Sara Sommers Wilks and her husband, Brian Wilks, were both arrested shortly after police responded to reports of an abandoned baby at Florida’s Miramar Beach around noon Friday.
Sommers Wilks, 37, and Wilks, 40, told police that they’d “lost track of time” while on a walk with their three older children, the Walton County Sheriff’s Office wrote on Facebook.
The pair were gone for nearly an hour.
“It’s right there at that hour time frame, 50 minutes to an hour, way longer than what would be reasonable,” Major Dustin Cosson with the Walton County Sheriff’s Office told ABC 13.
A good Samaritan collected the infant and was tending to her inside the nearby Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort and Spa when authorities arrived.
All the while, the parents had no idea what was going on and were impossible to reach as they’d left their cellphones behind with the infant, according to the sheriff’s office.
“We’re thankful for the quick-thinking beachgoer who raised the alarm and for those who stepped in to care for the child with the same kindness and concern they would show their own,” Sheriff Michael Adkinson said.
The baby’s vitals were normal and she wasn’t in any apparent distress, authorities said.
She and her three elder siblings were remanded into the Florida Department of Children and Families’ custody until other family members could pick them up, according to the sheriff’s office.
The parents were taken into custody shortly after and charged with child neglect without great bodily harm — a third-degree felony under the Florida Statutes.
Cosson was appalled by the parents’ disregard for all the different ways infants can mistakenly put themselves in danger — even while napping.
“That’s all fine and dandy, but you don’t just leave a baby at a house and then leave and go off to the store. The baby could roll over and suffocate itself, or the wind could blow a towel over its face. There’s no telling what could have happened,” he told ABC 13.
The parents were both released on a $1,000 bond on Saturday, police said.
Sommers Wilks boasts a storied business career and currently serves as the US Heart and Vascular’s regional president for Southeast Texas. The company is a provider of support services for independent cardiovascular practices in Arizona, Alabama, and Texas.
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