Another day, another daycare scandal. This one was in Texas, where two daycare operators are now behind bars for locking children in a shed, which contained gasoline, lawn equipment and insecticides.
Freddie Patek and his wife Marietta Patek, both 65, ran the facility in their home in Sealy in Austin County, where they were authorized to care for only three children at a time, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Acting on a tip, state child welfare inspectors visited the home on Wednesday and found 14 children, ranging in age from infants to preteens. Six of them were in a shed, although it was unclear if they were commonly warehoused there, or if the Pateks were just trying to hide the kids there from the inspectors.
Freddie was charged with tampering with physical evidence for trying to hide the extra little ones, and Marietta was charged with six counts of endangering a child. Fortunately, no one was injured. The center has been shutdown pending the investigation.
Josh Romo, the father of a two-year-old who was found in the shed, said that he had wondered why his daughter sometimes dreaded going to the daycare: “Now we know.”
Daniel Slutsky became the second child this week to die in a hot vehicle after being accidently left behind by a day care worker.
Daniel, 2, was forgotten for 6 and a half hours in a car with the windows rolled up outside a daycare center in suburban Philadelphia. Rimma Shuartsman, the operator of Fairy Tales Day Care and also his neighbor, had been taking the boy to the facility three times a week since September, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. But on Wednesday morning, she apparently forgot to take him out of his car seat.
Daniel died of hyperthermia. The high temperature was only 83 degrees, but that’s enough to turn a locked car into an oven. Police are investigating and haven’t made a decision on whether to charge Shuartsman.
Three-year-old Damilyn McElveen of Baton Rouge, La. died today after accidentally being left in a daycare van. The blue-and-white van was parked outside of Wanda’s Kids World, according to the Advocate.
Apparently, the child was picked up by an employee of the daycare this morning, and then left in the van all day, when temperatures were in the 90s. Police were notified just before 3 p.m. that daycare workers had found the child in the afternoon, attempted and failed to revive her using CPR.
The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration has tips here on preventing such tragedies.
Photo by Jalalspages
An 11-month-old boy fell into a bucket of water while unsupervised in a New York home daycare on Monday. Officials say that the babysitter, Krystal Khan, had taken cold medicine and fell asleep in another room. Khan, 28, of Queens, has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child, the Associated Press reported.
During a court hearing on Tuesday, family members of the child, James Farrior, screamed at Khan when she appeared. Khan had told police that she found the child face-down in the water after she returned from retrieving a mop.
It was unclear how many children Khan cared for. The New York Times reported that she did not have a daycare operating license, but those are not required unless a person is caring for more than two kids (not counting their own).
Precious “Fitz” Marney is accused of leaving a 4-month-old boy alone in the daycare van, where he died from the heat exposure. The child had left been left in the van outside the Bumble Bee Learning Center in Milwaukee for about four hours last week. Temperatures inside the vehicle registered more than 102 degrees, authorities said.
Jalen Knox-Perkins had been put in a car seat directly behind the driver, according to police. But Marney apparently parked the van and went inside the daycare, forgetting about Jalen. The baby was Marney’s last “pickup” of the morning. Marney was charged this week and could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted. The daycare center has been closed pending a state investigation.
“I know he’s sorry, but that’s not going to bring Jalen back,” Jalen’s grandmother Remona Williams told WISN TV News. Leaving kids in a vehicle unfortunately is becoming a more common tragic mistake. Read about other hyperthermia cases here.
A two-year-old girl at a Long Island, N.Y., daycare choked to death on Tuesday after she helped herself to some carrot sticks from her teacher’s bag.
No criminal charges are likely to be filed in the death of Olivia Raspanti of Hicksville, according to the Associated Press. However, officials shut down the Carousel Day Care School, because it did not have a proper license to operate. The center’s Web site claims it has been in business since 1956.
Raw carrots are one of the foods that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends keeping away from children younger than 4 unless they are closely supervised. For more information on children and choking hazards, click here.
Photo by John-Morgan
Judy Harper, owner of a North Carolina daycare center, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter for the death of a 17-month-old, according to MSNBC.
Police responded to a call around 3 p.m. last Monday from the center; the boy had stopped breathing and was bleeding from his nose and mouth. He later died at Alamance Regional Hospital.
A preliminary investigation found that the child had died of hyperthermia – commonly known as heat stroke or sunstroke. Authorities shut down Palmer-Leigh Small World Daycare in Haw River last Tuesday.
If your kids love blue Kool-Aid, make sure that they’re not reaching for windshield wiper fluid. Ten children in Arkansas are hospitalized after being served wiper fluid instead of the sweet drink at a home-based daycare, according to USA Today.
The children, ages 2 to 7, each drank about an ounce of the fluid before realizing it was not the tasty thirst-quencher that they’d hoped for. Apparently, an employee misplaced the blue wiper fluid in the refrigerator, and then accidentally served it to the kids.
The children are doing well, but remain hospitalized for observation. Their blood showed measurable levels of methanol, a toxic chemical that can induce comas and cause blindness, according to KATV.
On Friday, the home-based daycare in Scott closed, after relinquishing its license.
Here’s some free entrepreneurial advice: If you want to run a successful day care center, don’t pull down the kids’ pants and comment on their genitalia.
A California Department of Social Services report says Suzanna Best did just that at Best Family Child Care Home in Apple Valley, near the Mojave Desert. The report says Best pulled down children’s pants in front of adults and made inappropriate comments about the size and shape of their sexual organs. Knowing the way children take such comments to heart, this might have prompted suicidal despair.
Among other findings, the Associated Press said, the report says a developmentally disabled child was taken to the backyard and hosed off
with a garden hose after defecating in her clothing. The daycare center telephone has been disconnected.
Three-year-old Ronnie Ross of Dallas spent Monday evening sitting in a daycare van by himself. He emerged unscathed after three hours, rescued by his mother and firefighters.
The Tom Thumb Nursery and Kindergarten van was supposed to drop Ronnie off at his grandmother’s house at 6 p.m.. When he never arrived, the boy’s mother, Amber, went looking for him, and found him locked inside a parked van outside the daycare, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Firefighters freed the child, who was unharmed and went home with mom. As yet, no charges have been filed in the abandonment, although the daycare is being investigated.
Photo courtesy of NBCDFW