A Louisiana mother has been accused of abandoning young son on the side of the road and then reporting that he’d been kidnapped.

The St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday that it was called at about 1 a.m. on on November 5 by Artasia Quantaya Viges, who said she had stopped to deal with a flat tire in Eunice, and people in an “older model truck” kidnapped her son.

As the officer arrived on the scene, they learned that a oung boy had been found in the parking lot of Heinen Medical Clinic, a few blocks away, with abrasions on his knees.

“The child stated to officers that his mother ‘ran him over’ and left him on the side of the road,” the sheriff’s office said.

The boy was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment and the department’s juvenile detective division investigated.

The detectives determined that Viges had in fact left the boy alongside a major roadway “to run off into the night.”

“What started as a disagreement between a mother and a child became a bizarre reaction to the child having a tantrum,” the department said. “As the mother pulled the car over, the child, obviously not properly restrained, bailed out of the car before it came to a stop, resulting in the injuries to the child’s knees.”

Rather than trying to retrieve the boy, Viges chose to stay inside her vehicle, and, she said, she “ultimately lost sight of him.”

The sheriff’s office did not provide the age of the child.

According to The Eunice News, Viges was charged with felony cruelty of juveniles, misdemeanor child desertion, and felony false swearing for the purpose of violating public health or safety. Bail was set at $200,000.

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[Featured image: Artasia Quantaya Viges/St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office]