2-Year-Old Left in Car Overnight Outside Bar in Bristol: Police

A 2-year-old girl was left in a car overnight outside a sports bar in Bristol, Connecticut, while the mother spent the evening in the hospital because she was intoxicated, police said.

Police arrested Kelsey James, 22, of Bristol, after learning that her daughter was left in her car for more than five hours.

Employees said that James seemed drunk when she arrived City Sports Grill  in Bristol on Friday and they refused to serve her any drinks.

"I was talking to her a little bit, went and grabbed her a water, told her to stay there and I came back and she was gone," Courtney Lausier, a server at the bar, said.

Bar employees called police, who responded to the 177 Farmington Avenue bar at about 11:56 p.m. on Friday to investigate a report of a woman found sleeping at the bar who was "intoxicated and incapacitated," according to police.

She was taken to Bristol Hospital for treatment and to be evaluated. When she woke up at about 5:20 a.m., she asked hospital staff where her baby was, so the hospital contacted police. 

Police found her 2-year-old daughter sleeping in the mother's car at the sports bar parking lot, where she was left while her mother was in the bar and then the hospital, according to police.

The baby was taken to Bristol Hospital to be evaluated and is okay, police said. She is being kept in the hospital until Department of Children and Families representatives arrive in response to the incident.

Police charged James with risk of injury and leaving a child unsupervised in a vehicle, according to police.

The mother was released after posting a $50,000 bond and she is scheduled to appear in Bristol Superior Court on Sept. 2.

NBC Connecticut knocked on her door for comment, but no one answered.

More information will be provided when it becomes available.

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