NASHVILLE, Tenn. -
A two-year-old is recovering from second and third degree burns after police said he lit himself on fire with a lighter.
Metro police said the boy's mother left him and his seven-month-old sibling locked in a SUV while she shopped inside the Asian Market on Gallatin Pike in east Nashville Thursday.
Police believe the child started the fire with a lighter he found in his mother's purse.
Employees at Salon Serenity next door noticed the fire first.
"They heard a lot of screaming and they went outside to see what's going on. They looked in the car and the car doors [were] locked, but the baby was strapped in the seat and there was another baby beside him," salon owner Larond Hill told Nashville's News 2.
The witnesses ran inside the market to find the vehicle's owner.
Loy Prom, owner of the Asian Market, was there as the mother was alerted.
"She ran out and she started screaming, ‘Oh my God, oh my God because she saw her SUV full of smoke and I guess she saw her baby was burning," he explained.
Prom says the mother ripped off the child's pants and started beating out the flames, but his skin had already burned.
"The baby was burning and I [saw his skin] peeling and his pant [were] completely burned and the baby was crying real hard," Prom continued.
The toddler was transported to Vanderbilt University Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries.
Metro police said the case is an open investigation and as of Friday evening, the mother had not been charged.
Because of that, her name wasn't released.
The Tennessee Department of Children's Services has placed the children in the care of someone else.
