A father in Kentucky, USA, is accused of leaving his baby daughter unattended in a bathtub filled with water while he scrolled on his phone in another room. The incident occurred on Tuesday, May 26, when police in Covington responded to a report of an infant not breathing.
According to an arrest citation, the baby girl was found unresponsive after being left in the bathtub for approximately five minutes. The father, 20-year-old Seffan Mederious, allegedly told police he was in another room scrolling on his phone. When he returned to the bathroom, he discovered his daughter floating in the water.
Mederious then went to a relative's home, where someone called 911. The baby was rushed to Cincinnati Children's Hospital, and police have stated she is expected to make a full recovery.
Rob Sanders, the commonwealth's attorney for Kenton County, alleged that Mederious fled the scene after the incident. “I do know that when police arrived on the scene, Mr. Mederious had fled the residence and was found hiding at a nearby relative’s residence, so he didn’t stick around to help police and firefighters, and he didn’t respond to the hospital to see how the baby was doing,” Sanders said, per WXIX. “He felt it more important to run away from the scene.”
Mederious has been charged with wanton endangerment and criminal abuse. He appeared in court on Wednesday, May 27, for a preliminary hearing, and the case is expected to go before a grand jury.
“We take children’s safety very seriously in Kenton County,” Sanders said. “We don’t expect parents to be perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they can’t do things that place their child at the risk of serious injury or death or there’s going to be consequences for it.”
