The mother accused of leaving her 2-year-old girl in a car overnight outside a sports bar in Bristol while she spent the evening in the hospital intoxicated appeared in court on Tuesday.
A judge continued the case of Kelsey James, 22, of Bristol, who police arrested late August after learning that her daughter was left in her car for more than five hours.
James seemed drunk when she arrived at City Sports Grill in Bristol on Friday, Aug. 22 and employees refused to serve her any drinks, according to staff members at the bar.
"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. the next morning, 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.
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The baby was taken to Bristol Hospital to be evaluated and is okay, police said. She was kept in the hospital until Department of Children and Families representatives arrived 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 previously knocked on her door for comment, but no one answered.
