North Carolina woman charged with death of infant son after Hurricane Florence
(Reuters) - A North Carolina woman whose 1-year-old son was swept away and drowned in floodwaters from Hurricane Florence has been criminally charged with his death, authorities said, because she drove around safety barricades onto a washed-out roadway.
The mother, Dazia Ideah Lee, 20, of Charlotte, was served with a summons on Monday on a charge of involuntary manslaughter and a misdemeanor count of driving on a closed or unopened highway, Union County sheriff's dispatcher Ashley Rushing said.
Lee was not arrested. She was ordered by the summons to appear in court on Nov. 20, Rushing told Reuters.
The sheriff's office has said that Lee's 1-year-old son, Kaiden Lee-Welch, was swept away from his mother as they tried to escape their car, which was caught in floodwaters after she drove around barricades to reach a closed road.
Local broadcast station WTVD reported Lee later told authorities someone had pushed the barricades slightly to the side, leaving her to believe it was safe to proceed past them.
But her car was caught by the swift current of an overflowing creek before she realized what was happening, she told WTVD in an interview shortly after the tragedy.
"It just spun us around in circles and I knew there was no way to get back on land because it just took us by surprise," she said. "Everything just happened too fast."
As the water pinned her car against a cluster of trees, Lee managed to free her son from his car seat and escape the vehicle, but the waters were deep and she lost hold of the boy, according to WTVD's account.
The boy's body was found the next day. He was one of dozens of people who perished in extensive flooding triggered across the Carolinas last month by Florence and subsequent torrential rains as the tropical storm it became lingered over the region.
It was not immediately known if Lee had obtained a lawyer.
(Reporting and writing by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Tom Hogue)
