Photo: ABC13
Despite numerous warnings and various ways of trying to raise awareness on the seriousness of a seemingly inoffensive gesture – that of leaving a child in a hot car even for a few minutes – the death count keeps on rising.
Last week, a 3-year-old died after being “forgotten” in the bus of the daycare center he was attending, after a field trip, ABC News reports. In this case, though, it wasn’t an apparently inoffensive oversight: it was gross negligence, as Constable Alan Rosen puts it.
The incident occurred after a school trip and the documents retrieved by the police from the Discover Me Academy show that the boy was accounted for upon re-entering the premises. Of the 28 children that went on the trip, all were accounted for.
They were accompanied by the driver and a chaperone, and both were taken for questioning and might be charged in the boy’s death. The van returned on daycare premises at around 3 o’clock in the afternoon and the boy’s disappearance was only noticed when his father came to pick him up in the evening.
Police estimate that the boy was left about 4 hours locked in the hot van. When they arrived at the scene, temperatures inside were of over 113 degrees. The boy was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
“The next thing I know, a few hours later the dad and the owner came out and was crying,” eyewitness Kenneth Brooks tells the media outlet. “When EMS had him, he was just limp, you know. Right there, I knew the kid was gone. It's a sad day.”
Constable Rosen has promised to offer the parents of the victim all the answers once the ongoing investigation concludes.
“It seems to me this was just gross negligence. It's just tragic,” he adds. “I can't fathom being a father and losing a child like this, and so our prayers and thoughts are with this family.”
As it turns out, this is the first time that the daycare is in trouble, though it’s definitely the most serious situation. In 2015, it was cited for various violations regarding the van, including not having an electronic child safety alarm that would notify the driver when a child was left behind, for a driver not knowing how many children she had in her group, and for not reporting a wreck with the van in a timely manner.
The incident occurred after a school trip and the documents retrieved by the police from the Discover Me Academy show that the boy was accounted for upon re-entering the premises. Of the 28 children that went on the trip, all were accounted for.
They were accompanied by the driver and a chaperone, and both were taken for questioning and might be charged in the boy’s death. The van returned on daycare premises at around 3 o’clock in the afternoon and the boy’s disappearance was only noticed when his father came to pick him up in the evening.
Police estimate that the boy was left about 4 hours locked in the hot van. When they arrived at the scene, temperatures inside were of over 113 degrees. The boy was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
“The next thing I know, a few hours later the dad and the owner came out and was crying,” eyewitness Kenneth Brooks tells the media outlet. “When EMS had him, he was just limp, you know. Right there, I knew the kid was gone. It's a sad day.”
Constable Rosen has promised to offer the parents of the victim all the answers once the ongoing investigation concludes.
“It seems to me this was just gross negligence. It's just tragic,” he adds. “I can't fathom being a father and losing a child like this, and so our prayers and thoughts are with this family.”
As it turns out, this is the first time that the daycare is in trouble, though it’s definitely the most serious situation. In 2015, it was cited for various violations regarding the van, including not having an electronic child safety alarm that would notify the driver when a child was left behind, for a driver not knowing how many children she had in her group, and for not reporting a wreck with the van in a timely manner.
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