MINERAL RIDGE, Ohio (WKBN) – Police are trying to figure out how a little boy ended up in a store parking lot on a busy street all by himself.

A police investigation is underway after a customer found the toddler wandering alone in the Dollar General parking lot off of State Route 46.

“A wandering 2- or 3-year-old around a busy street, it’s a life-threatening situation for a child,” said Tim Schaffner, with Trumbull County Children Services.

It was a little after 8:30 a.m. Tuesday when a store employee called police to report a customer had found an unattended little boy.

The employee estimated the child was only about 3 or 4 and was only wearing a diaper.

Caller: “His blanket is soaked like he walked through like, the like, the grass or something.”

“The customer or the workers who reported this are once again heroes. They’re heroes of the ‘see something, say something.’ They really probably saved this child’s life,” Schaffner said.

Weatherfield Police Chief Michael Naples said officers were eventually able to find the child’s parents.

“Sometimes it’s no fault of the parents that they have a precocious child who can get out the door, other times it’s a pattern of parenting,” Schaffner said.