Tag: CHILDREN
Father charged after leaving son in hot SUV for nearly six hours
A 4-year-old Minnesota boy died after his father left him inside a hot SUV for nearly six hours while he worked, authorities said.
Kristopher Alexander Taylor, 26, of Apple Valley, was charged Monday with second-degree manslaughter in the death of his son, who was found “stiff” to the touch when Taylor returned to his SUV on Saturday after working at the Minnesota Monthly 8th Annual Grillfest at CHS Field in St. Paul, according to a criminal complaint obtained by the Star Tribune.
Taylor parked the vehicle in a spot “entirely exposed” to sunlight and told police he cracked just one of its windows roughly one-quarter to one-half inch for the boy. Taylor said he gave his son a handheld video game to pass the time and last checked on him at about 11:30 a.m. Saturday before returning nearly six hours later at 5:15 p.m., the complaint reads.
The boy — identified by a family friend as Riley Taylor — was left in Taylor’s care at about 2:30 a.m. Friday while his mother went to work. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital after Taylor returned to the SUV and found him unresponsive, the Star Tribune reports.
Temperatures during the nearly six-hour span ranged from 64 to 70 degrees, with partly cloudy to mostly cloudy skies, according to National Weather Service data. But reps from a national nonprofit advocacy group told the newspaper that children have died from heatstroke inside cars while temperatures dipped below 60 degrees outside.
“A vehicle acts like a greenhouse, heating up to deadly temperatures within minutes, even on a mild day,” KidsandCars.org told the Star Tribune in a statement. “Contrary to popular belief, cracking the windows does nothing to decrease the maximum temperature reached inside a vehicle. Additionally, a child’s body temperature rises 3 to 5 times faster than an adult’s.”
A preliminary ruling from the medical examiner reported that Riley died of hyperthermia. A total of 52 children died inside cars due to excessive heat last year, making 2018 the deadliest year on record for such deaths. On average, 38 children die in hot cars annually — or one every nine days, according to the group, which has tracked data for more than 20 years.
Taylor, who was arrested at the hospital, told police he couldn’t find anyone to watch his son while he worked and didn’t think it was too hot to leave his son behind, citing prior instances, KSTP reports.
“Taylor said he had done it once in the past about a year ago and nothing bad happened to the boy on that occasion, but he admitted he had left the window entirely down that time,” the complaint reads.
Jan Null, a meteorologist at San Jose State University, said Riley is the fifth person nationwide to die inside a hot car this year. The interior of a vehicle in direct sunlight could exceed temperatures of 130 degrees if the outside temp is roughly 71 degrees, Null told the station.
Taylor, who has been released from custody after posting $25,000 bail, is scheduled to return to court on Friday.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/05/07/father-charged-after-leaving-son-in-hot-suv-for-nearly-six-hours/
Photo Credit: Facebook; St. Paul Police Department
2-year-old almost died after popcorn infected his lung
Go ahead and splurge for the extra-large popcorn at your next family movie — but you might want to keep it away from the kids.
That’s what Nicole Johnson Goddard learned after letting her son Nash, 2, snack on the crunchy kernels during a Saturday night viewing of “Mrs. Doubtfire.” His older sisters — ages 7 and 9 — were eating it, and she couldn’t see the harm in letting him have some, too.
But as the flight attendant from Parker, Colo., wrote in a now viral post on Facebook, that decision had near-fatal consequences for her son, resulting in a four-day stay in the hospital.
“At first [Nash] choked on something,” Goddard, 39, tells The Post. “We heard him gasping for air so my husband picked him up to see if he could dislodge it.” Her husband put Nash down (and took away the snack), when the tot said he was fine.
That mid-February night, however, Nash developed “this really funky cough,” Goddard says, which turned into a 104-degree fever a few days later.
With a flu-like virus going around the house, Goddard says she took Nash to the pediatrician, even though she “had been in there with my girls on three separate occasions with them being sick.”
“I kind of felt like a hypochondriac,” she says.
It was her “mom instinct” that convinced her to bring him in anyway, and to mention the weekend’s choking incident to the doctor.
After X-rays and a visit to a pediatric pulmonologist, it was clear that Nash’s left lung was swollen and infected with pneumonia.
The culprit? Multiple microscopic pieces of popcorn that were still lodged in his respiratory tract.
“When he choked on it, he had a mouthful of popcorn that he had chewed up and he aspirated it,” Goddard says. It took two separate procedures, under general anesthesia, to “pick out the six pieces of popcorn: kernels, shells and everything else,” she says.
Now, with Nash healthy and out of the hospital, Goddard wants other parents to know the risks of letting their toddlers eat the movie-theater favorite. (As she learned, the American Academy of Pediatrics classifies popcorn, along with grapes and hot dogs, as a “high-risk food” for toddlers.)
“Honestly, I’m not a big Facebook sharer,” she says of writing up her story, which has been shared over 130,000 times, “but I thought, I might as well post it, because it’s alarming and I would have liked someone to do the same. Maybe it would have prevented this whole thing in the first place.”
via: https://nypost.com/2019/03/06/my-2-year-old-almost-died-after-popcorn-infected-his-lung/
21 students hospitalized after eating Valentine’s Day candy
ATLANTA — School officials said 21 students from a middle school south of Atlanta have been taken to hospitals after eating candy and snacks on Valentine’s Day.
Authorities with the city of South Fulton said it appeared that the Sandtown Middle School students became ill after eating some type of candy Thursday. They said the children experienced shortness of breath and other reactions.
City spokeswoman Ashley Minter-Osanyinbi said the students were taken to two local hospitals.
Fulton County Schools spokeswoman Susan Romanick said the students were first evaluated by paramedics, and then taken to two Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta campuses.
Romanick said she didn’t know what type of candy and snacks were eaten. She said that question is part of an investigation being done by the school system’s police department.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/02/14/21-students-hospitalized-after-eating-valentines-day-candy/
Day care worker caught on video abusing children
A day care worker in Arkansas was arrested after she was caught on camera aggressively handling two young children, police said.
McKenzie Howell, 19, of Mabelvale, was arrested Monday on two felony counts of first-degree endangering the welfare of a minor after a caller told police her 21-month-old son was abused on June 29 at Kid’s Academy in Bryant, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.
Howell, a class instructor at the facility, was arrested after investigators spoke with witnesses and reviewed footage from security cameras at the location. A woman who also works at the day care said she reviewed portions of video surveillance that showed her son being abused before she contacted the Child Abuse Hotline, which referred her to police.
The woman told police that Howell grabbed her son “aggressively off the ground” before trying to put him in a chair near a wall. But Howell dropped the boy, causing his head to apparently hit a wall before falling to the floor, according to a police report.
Howell later picked the boy up again and put him in a chair. No bruises or other marks were found on his body, police said.
Another colleague at the facility said she also saw Howell push another girl into a wall and forcefully pull the child’s arm.
The second colleague who witnessed Howell’s alleged abuse then told the facility’s manager of the incidents. Howell, who had been previously warned not to be “verbally aggressive” with the children, was then sent home and told not to return until further notice, police said.
Video obtained by KATV shows an employee at the day care facility sitting on a classroom floor in front of six young children when a worker identified by police as Howell is seen dragging a girl on the floor by the legs in front of her.
“This next part, I’m not going to lie, is hard to watch,” Bryant Police Department Sgt. Todd Crowson told the station. “You know, she just looked angry in the video. I’m not real sure why.”
Howell is also seen in other footage picking up a girl by the shoulders and throwing her into a chair. In another instance, Howell grabbed a girl by her shoulders and pushed her back against a wall while she sat on the floor, causing the toddler to immediately grab her shoulder and cry, the video shows.
“Kids can be tough to deal with at times, but you just got to have the right temperament for that job and some people, that type of job is not for them,” Crowson said. “If you’re a worker who works around kids and you feel like you’re having a bad day, maybe you should take a day off.”
At least one child has been removed from the facility since Howell’s arrest, KATV reports. She has since been released from custody at a jail in Saline County after posting $5,000 bond, jail records show.
Howell’s arrest is the latest complaint in connection with the day care facility. In January, state officials launched an investigation regarding its staff-to-child ratio, the Democrat-Gazette reported. An internal report in January showed that day care officials fired an employee for not being able to account for all of the children in her care after two children reportedly ran out when a parent opened a door, according to the newspaper.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/07/10/day-care-worker-caught-on-video-abusing-children/
Moms claim daycare workers waxed their kids’ eyebrows
A hairy mystery is unfolding in Washington state, where a pair of distressed moms claim a daycare center waxed their children’s eyebrows.
One of the moms told local outlets she noticed her 2-year-old daughter, Lilayiah, was missing a patch of hair and had reddened skin when she picked her up last week.
“I knew she was missing her patch of hair because she has a unibrow and she was born like that,” Alyssa Salgado, 19, told WLTX News.
“She had a couple of tears in her eyes,” she added.
The concerned mom reached out to the nursery, run by the Boys and Girls Club of Benton and Franklin counties on the Columbia Basin College campus in Pasco.
She also spoke with other moms, including Glenda Maria Cruz, who said her toddler son’s unibrow was plucked the same day.
“I tried to touch his face. He doesn’t let me touch his face. He says, ‘No, no, stop,’ and it hurts me because that’s my baby,” said Cruz.
The moms, who said the center’s director scoffed at their concerns, filed a report with police Monday, KNDO reported.
Officials with the Washington State Department of Early Learning, which licenses the daycare, visited Monday and said their investigation would likely take about 30 days.
The Boys and Girls Club said in a statement that it would cooperate in the probe.
“I hope they figure out who did that to my daughter,” Salgado said.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/02/07/moms-claim-daycare-workers-are-waxing-kids-eyebrows/
21 children injured after platform collapses at San Diego parkour gym for kids
21 children injured after platform collapses at San Diego parkour gym for kids
San Diego’s Vault PK is usually packed with bouncing and flipping children on Saturday evenings, when it hosts a “kids’ night out” for budding athletes ages 5 to 14.
This past weekend was especially packed, parents said, as people cashed in a Groupon that got three kids into the parkour facility’s open gym for just $30. The three-hour event is supervised by Vault PK staff members, so it doubles as a parents’ night out, too.
Some of the nearly 150 children present played on the obstacle course, styled similarly to those on “American Ninja Warrior,” but roughly a third had gathered on a 10-foot-by-30-foot wooden viewing platform, parent Cory Brizendine told San Diego ABC-affiliate KGTV. That’s where the pizza was being served.
“Once the majority of kids got up there, the whole platform collapsed,” he said.
The crumbling structure took a connected staircase with it, authorities and witnesses told reporters. Wood and little bodies tumbled to the ground — on top of children playing below — forming a heap of injured kids and gym equipment.
California boy, 8, killed with hammer trying to protect younger sister from mother’s abusive ex-boyfriend molestation
An 8-year-old boy in California was killed trying to protect his younger sister from their mother’s ex-boyfriend.
Dante Daniels, who had just started the third grade at South Sacramento’s Oakridge Elementary, was brutally beaten with a hammer during the early morning of Sept. 1. He died from his injuries six days later.
A criminal complaint states that 23-year-old Deandre Chaney Jr. was performing a criminal lewd act on Dante’s 7-year-old sister when the little boy stepped in to help, Fox 40 reports.
Chaney, who pleaded no contest last year to a charge of failing to register as a sex offender, was the ex-boyfriend of Dante’s mother, 28-year-old Elizabeth Salone.
“The guy beat my grandson with a hammer,” Monique Brown, the children’s grandmother told Fox 40. “Down to his spine. They couldn’t save his brain.”
The criminal complaint states that Chaney used lighter fluid during the attack, and at point turned the hammer and a knife on Dante’s sister.
“Trying to save his sister from this child molester and that’s why he was beat the worst.” Brown said.
According to an arrest warrant, the children were home alone with Chaney when the attack happened. Salone had asked him to watch her children while she took her brother to work, the Sacramento Bee reports.
When she returned home, she heard one of her children crying. Salone told detectives that she was “struck at least three times” with a hammer from behind as she went to check on her child. Chaney then tied her up and poured lighter fluid on her.
Police said he grabbed her car keys and some other items and left in Salone’s vehicle. Chaney was captured a day after the attack in Nevada hiding in someone’s backyard.
Both Salone and her daughter survived, but Salone’s left eye was damaged during the attack.
“She will probably never see out of her left eye,” Brown said. “My granddaughter will need a lot of help.”
Brown said even after Dante’s death, he’s continuing to help people. A 4-year-old boy in California received Dante’s heart.
Chaney was arraigned on murder, attempted murder and charged with lewd acts with a child under 14.
The family started a GoFundMe as Salone and her daughter recover.
Woman charged after great-grandson dies after being left in hot car for 7 hours
POINT PLEASANT, W.Va. — Police say a 67-year-old West Virginia woman has been charged in the death of her great-grandson, who was left in a hot car for seven hours.
WSAZ-TV in Huntington reports Carolyn Davis of Point Pleasant was charged with child neglect resulting in death.
Police say the 19-month-old died of heat exposure after he was left in the car after Davis dropped the boy’s mother off at work and returned home. Police say Davis got the child’s 4-year-old sibling out of the car but left the 19-month-old inside, although investigators don’t believe she intentionally left the child.
Police said the boy was inside the car from 7:30 a.m. until around 2:30 p.m. with no windows down.
Davis was picked up May 5 in Ohio and is awaiting extradition. It was not clear whether she had a lawyer.
via: http://nypost.com/2017/05/10/woman-charged-after-great-grandson-dies-in-hot-car/