Children abandoned in car outside Motel 6

Two young children left in a freezing car last night are safe today, thanks to a motel security guard.

Greg West was making his normal rounds after 10:00 Wednesday night at the Motel 6 on Market Street, when he heard a crying child.

West said he approached a mini-van in the motel’s parking lot and found two kids alone inside.

A four-year-old boy and a three-month-old girl were shivering, sitting in the van’s back seat. Temperatures last night were below freezing.

The mini-van had a hole in one of its windows, and the doors were unlocked.

West got the kids out, brought them inside the motel’s office to warm up and called 9-1-1. “They were wearing were basic pajamas. Not much more than you would wear inside a house. They were not wearing cold weather gear or anything. He had one glove; he had lost the other one.”

The mother, Amy Smith, was found walking on the hotel property. She was arrested and charged with misdemeanor child abuse.

Smith is in the New Hanover County Jail under a $1,200 bond. The children were taken to the hospital, and released to the Department of Social Services.