3-year-old suffers heat stroke after daycare owner leaves child in hot car, mother says

ATLANTA - The owner of a northwest Atlanta daycare is accused of child cruelty.

On a day when the FOX 5 Storm Team said temperatures reached the mid-80s, investigators said he left a child in a hot car.

The 3-year-old's mother said he suffered a heat stroke but is doing much better now. 

Zahir Williams's mother said he was in the ICU for several days after being left in that hot car last Monday, April 25. 

"Mr. Palmer had called me, and he said 'mom, get to the hospital," Briyah Williams explained. 

 Williams is still trying to understand how a daycare visit ended with her son, Zahir, lying in a hospital bed.

His head was bandaged and tubes were connected to his small frame.

"I was hurt. I just couldn't think about anything else. I was just hurt. I thought everything was over with," she said. 

She said Moric Palmer was in the process of driving the three-year-old to school, but he needed to stop at a home on Gary Court near Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway.

"He went home to take his insulin. He said it usually doesn't put him to sleep, but it put him to sleep. Kind of crazy right," Wiliams said. 

Williams said she’s not sure how long Palmer left her son in the hot car.

"He tried to give him some water and put him in the tub," Williams detailed.

She said her child was unresponsive when Palmer woke back up.

He rushed the little boy to the hospital where he was in serious condition.

51-year-old Moric Palmer (Provided by Fulton County Sheriff's Office)

Atlanta police have charged the 51-year-old with second-degree cruelty to children.

He has since bonded out of jail.

FOX 5 stopped by the home on Gary Court but no one answered.

The director of Mother Hubbard’s Daycare Center did speak briefly saying the organization is improving its policies and procedures to prevent this from happening again.

"It was an accident. It's not something that happens here. We apologize. Our deepest concerns for the kid that it happens too," the woman detailed. 

Palmer was not there.

As for the Williams family, they have ended their relationship with the daycare.

"Some stuff not adding up. It's not adding up," Williams said.