Parents Drive Off With Baby on Car’s Roof; Child Bruised

TAMPA, Fla. —  A month-old baby was left in a car seat on the roof of a car while his parents drove off, but escaped with only minor injuries as he fell to the pavement, police said today.

Police said the car traveled about 150 feet along a dirt road, made a left turn across three lanes of traffic and began to accelerate before the car seat flipped onto the trunk and then the pavement.

The infant, Darren Hayes Jr., was thrown from the car seat and tumbled onto the street, but suffered only a cut lip and bumps and bruises on his head.

Detective Bobby Garner said the parents, Darren Sr., 20, and Nichole, 16, loaded their two older children in the car, strapping them into car seats in the back seat.

He said the father had carried the infant in the car seat to the car and placed it atop the vehicle. As the mother got into the back seat with the other children, the father got in front with the driver, Christopher Huff, 29.

Garner said each parent assumed the other had the infant.