When you send your young child to day care while you go to work, you are putting your trust in the facility’s employees that the child will be closely supervised and kept out of harm’s way as much as possible. But one Las Vegas day care center has allegedly broken that trust by leaving a 2-year-old boy under supervised on Oct. 31. As a result of what his parents are calling negligent supervision, the boy lost part of a finger in an accident.
According to a report by KTNV-TV, on the day of the injury there were nine children at T.O.P. Kids, a day care center located at a Las Vegas church. But instead of having enough staff to maintain Nevada’s required ratio of six children per teacher – or four to one for infants – there was just one teacher, an 18-year-old woman with no medical training, watching the children that day.
At some point, the 2-year-old began to play with one of the heavy steel doors that lead outside the building. His right middle finger apparently became caught in the door, and he lost the tip as a result.
The Nevada Childcare Licensing Division’s childcare facilities supervisor said that the investigation into the accident was ongoing. She said that, depending on the probe’s results, T.O.P. Kids may lose its license. The day care center has been cited several times in recent years for infractions including understaffing and having untrained staff.
The director of the facility admitted that she did not provide enough staff the day of the finger injury, and said she had no excuse for letting that happen.
Source: KTNV-TV, “Daycare where toddler was injured has history of violations,” Darcy Spears, Nov. 2, 2011
