Pregnant Mom Faces Jail Time Over Toddler's Potty Emergency In Gas Station Parking Lot
AUGUSTA, Ga. (CBS Local) -- A pregnant mom was cited by a deputy for disorderly conduct and faces up to 60 days behind bars after her 3-year-old urinated in a parking lot on his way to the restroom.
Brooke Johns said she was driving down Sandbar Ferry Road southeast of Augusta, Georgia, Wednesday when her toddler son, Cohen Johns, said he really, really needed to use the restroom.
"He's like, 'Mom, I've got to pee. I've got to pee!' I was like, 'Well, hold on,' and he's like, 'No! I've GOT to pee! I've got to REALLY pee.' And I'm like, 'Baby, there's nowhere for me to go, and he says, 'Momma, I'm about to pee in my pants!" Johns told CBS affiliate WRDW.
The two barely made it to a gas station parking lot before she realized he wasn't going to make it inside.
"I can't pick him up," Johns said. "I'm not supposed to lift him."
Johns said she tried to cover Cohen up as best as she could as he relieved himself right there in the parking lot.
"He was peeing before his pants were even all the way down, so obviously he had to go," Johns said.
The commotion caught the attention of a Richmond County Sheriff's deputy.
"Accidents happen. And he was like, 'Take him in the bathroom.' What if I would have ran in the bathroom and someone had been in there? What I was going to let him do? Pee on the floor of the gas station?" Johns said.
Instead, the deputy cited her with a disorderly conduct charge.
"She allowed her male child to urinate in the parking lot," the deputy wrote on the citation. "I observed the male's genitals and the urination. Public restrooms are offered at the location."
"I'm going to court April 30," said Johns, who lives in nearby Beech Island, South Carolina. "Several days before I am due. Yeah, I could extend it, but I would rather deal with it when I'm pregnant. Not when I have a newborn."
If convicted, Johns faces up to 60 days in jail and a $5,000 fine.
When asked about the citation, the Sheriff's Office quoted an ordinance against "any person who damages, befouls or disturbs public property or the property of another so as to create a hazardous, unhealthy or physically offensive condition."