Man Arrested After Passing Out, Leaving Baby In Backseat Of Sweltering Car With Drugs
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AMBRIDGE (KDKA) -- A father is facing charges after police say they found him passed out in a car with drugs inside and his young son in the backseat on a 90-plus degree day.
Police and paramedics were called to the intersection of Kennedy Drive and 10th Street in Ambridge around noon on Monday.
The sun was beating down, the temperature was in the 90s and the weather was downright sweltering.
First responders found 34-year-old Kristofer Lee Wigton, of Leet Township, unconscious in his car there with a male passenger, and Wigton's 10-month-old son was in a car seat in the back sweating profusely. The driver's side door was open, Wigton was behind the wheel and the vehicle was stopped but still in gear, and it had no air conditioning.
A search of the vehicle turned up heroin, hypodermic needles, marijuana, and suboxone and a prescription medicine used to treat symptoms of drug addiction and withdrawal.
Neighbors reacted with shock to police finding a baby in the overheated car with his dad allegedly on drugs.
"I'm speechless. I can't understand it," neighbor Nikia Montgomery said. "I couldn't imagine having my child in the car, even seeing something like that, let alone being part of something like that."
Another neighbor, Mark Peyton told KDKA-TV's Ralph Iannotti, "It's just unbelievable. What would be going through someone's mind to have a child like that and endanger them?"
"I'm just glad the baby is okay," long-time Ambridge resident MaryAnne Mikulich said. "If he's behind bars, that's where he belongs."
Wigton is now in the Beaver County Jail, facing charges that include child endangerment.