We have seen far too many headlines this summer about kids who were hospitalized or died after being left behind in a hot car. Despite all of these headlines, some parents and caregivers still haven’t gotten the wake-up call, as a Texas mom left her two small children behind in a car while she got a haircut on Monday. While such a situation could have had a sad ending, the kids are all right thanks to a group of shoppers that took matters into their own hands.

Shoppers at a strip mall in Katy, Texas noticed a small boy and girl crying in a Jeep in the parking lot on Monday, with the parents nowhere in sight. Temperatures can reach well into the nineties in Texas during the summer, and being locked in a vehicle for a period of time can become fatal for anyone, particularly children. As such, the shoppers wasted no time in breaking out one of the windows of the car to retrieve the kids.

One of the shoppers took a video of the incident with his cell phone, which you can view below.

As you saw in the video, one person used a hammer to break out a window. After the shopper broke the window, it took a bit of effort to get the door opened to get the kids out.

“It was a crazy situation,” said Gabriel Del Valle, the man who took the video. “The kids were in there crying. I mean, you would understand; it’s real hot.”

Del Valle says that the mother came out a few minutes later and that she begged them not to call the police on her. No one did, but considering that such cases are become more prevalent, there is little doubt that she would have faced child neglect charges.

As stories of children being left in cars continues to make headlines, some people are doing everything they can to try to make others more aware of the dangers, including locking themselves in hot cars to make a point. The “Hot Car Challenge” started earlier this month where people post videos of themselves sweating it out in their cars during the hottest part of the day to show how dangerous it can be to leave kids in the car. Check out more about the Hot Car Challenge below.

Image via YouTube