Officer Breaks Into Hot Car To Rescue ‘Baby’, Then Realizes He Made A Huge Mistake

Note: we are republishing this story, which originally made the news in August 2016, amid recent reports that indicate a record number of children have died from heatstroke in cars in recent years. More on this here: https://www.nhtsa.gov/child-safety/you-can-help-prevent-hot-car-deaths

A New Hampshire police officer broke into a car to rescue a baby locked inside, only to discover it was a lifelike doll.

Keene police Lt. Jason Short was called to a Wal-Mart for a report of a baby locked inside of a car in the parking lot on July 23, reports WMUR.

Because it was a hot day, Short decided immediately upon seeing feet sticking out from under a blanket that he needed to break the window to rescue the baby.

After Short had broken into the car and pulled the blanket away, he thought the child was dead, so he breathed into its mouth, but the lungs did not inflate. He then realized that the baby was, in fact, a realistic-looking doll and that its mouth did not open. He canceled the call for an ambulance.

When Short found the owner of the doll, Carolynne Seiffert, who was getting her hair cut in Super Cuts during the incident, she told the officer that it was designed to look as much as a real baby as possible. Short said the doll even felt like a real baby when he picked it up.

Seiffert had purchased the doll, named Ainslie from a doll nursery for $2,300 the week before the incident, according to Sentinel Source. The doll, called a “reborn” doll, is handcrafted from silicone so it looks as realistic as possible. Seiffert has a collection of reborn dolls.

She says she plans to put a sticker on her car to alert others that the babies inside the car are not real.