A Campbell County mother admitted to authorities that she was high on meth when she abandoned her toddler in the woods, according to an arrest report.

Virginia Seal is charged with aggravated child abuse and neglect.

Just before 9 a.m. on Oct. 9, deputies went to Sawmill Circle for a report that an almost 2-year-old child had been found.

Employees at Wagging Tails noticed the child near one of the dog lots. The child was found with a pink blanket and a pit bull. He also had several fresh cuts and bruises.

Employee Kristin Dutton said she let some dogs out that morning and they started barking at that pit bull, that seemed to be guarding the child.

“If the dog wouldn’t have been out there and our dogs wouldn’t have been barking at him, then we probably would have never found the kid,” Dutton said.

The Department of Children’s Services took the toddler to get medical treatment.

“I think it was about 45 (degrees) that. I know that we wouldn’t even leave our dogs out in that weather so I couldn’t imagine a little kid being out in that weather,” Dutton said.

The toddler was screaming for his mother, witnesses said.

A neighbor nearby said he woke up at 8:30 a.m. to the sounds of a child crying, according to an arrest report.

During the investigation, a city employee contacted 911, saying the child was probably his grandchild.

Later, Seal flagged down a sergeant with the sheriff’s office and according the arrest report, told him that she was high on methamphetamine the night before.

She said she took her child into the woods and gave him to a “man in a blue fireman’s jacket.” Then, she said, she heard her dad’s voice and left, the arrest report read.

“That angers me. How can a mother something like that to a child? Especially her own child that she gave birth to,” asked neighbor Lynne Davis.

She heard the crying from her porch and said at first she thought a dog got to the child. This was worse.

“It’s awful, it’s a tragedy really. To think a mother could do something like that,” Davis said.

Found at Local 8 Now