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MICHIGAN CITY — Maria Diaz went back to the taxi after using a gas station restroom only to find it missing — with her sleeping 11-year-old son still inside the seven-passenger van.

Several anxious hours went by before the cab driver, who was well into Michigan by then, was finally reached and started heading back.

The cab driver still wanted most of his $450 fare, but Diaz said she refused to give him a dime.

“I was crying. In the blink of an eye your child is gone. It’s not right. It’s not right,” she said.

Diaz said she and her children had just returned from a one-week vacation in California and caught the taxi after landing at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.

The taxi was en route to Grand Rapids when it stopped early Wednesday at the Speedway just east of Michigan City near the U.S 20/U.S 35 interchange with Interstate 94, LaPorte County police said.

Diaz and her daughter were using the restroom while the cab driver, Ahmad Allababidi, 50, of Chicago refueled and grabbed some coffee, police said.

After Diaz and her daughter used the restroom and bought some juice and snacks, they walked out to find the taxi was gone.