A mother is being questioned after a shocking video emerged showing her apparently the worse for wear from drugs as her seven-year-old daughter tries to take care of her on a busy bus - and no adult helps.
In the video, shared on Facebook and viewed thousands of times, the semi-conscious mum is filmed with her eyes shut and her mouth dropped open, rocking backwards and forwards as her young daughter keeps checking to see if she's OK.
During the 4 mins 28 secs clip, the bus stops several times and passengers ease past the mother and daughter to get off – but nobody checks to see if the girl or the mother are alright.
At one point, the mum almost passes out and keels over before the girl cajoles her upright, saying: "Mama, mama."
The incident was filmed on the 66 bus route in Philadelphia, US, by resident John Warren, who then uploaded it to Facebook, which led to the authorities getting involved.
Anne Marie Ambrose of the Philadelphia department of human services, said: "While it is helpful that so many people emailed and called us after viewing the video, there were many people on the bus who witnessed this as it was occurring and took no action at all."
Police say they are now investigating the incident but were disappointed that no one called them at the time. Philadelphia police lieutenant John Stanford said: "We don't want people to engage because you don't know what's going on here. But we'd prefer you to call 911 or stop the operator of the vehicle."
The woman has been taken in for questioning but police haven't confirmed if she has been charged or if she was under the influence of drugs at the time.
While most comments about the video on Facebook suggested the mother 'clearly had an addiction to drugs' and said they would have intervened if they had witnessed the incident, others cautioned not to rush to judgment, saying that the mother may have been suffering from some kind of illness.