3-year-old hospitalized after daycare worker leaves him in bus, Mississippi police say
A daycare worker was charged with child deprivation after a toddler in her care had to be hospitalized for heat exhaustion, Mississippi police say.
A Picayune mother’s 3-year-old son was nowhere to be found when she arrived Aug. 15 to pick up her two children at First Steps Learning Lab daycare center, according to a news release.
A bus driver for the facility eventually emerged with him, police say, and the toddler was later treated for heat exhaustion at Highland Community Hospital, where he stayed overnight.
His mother, Stephanie Breaux, told WLOX News that she thinks he was left on the daycare bus by Treshay Mashette Quinn for about two hours. She told police her children are regularly picked up at school at around 2:15 p.m. and taken to the daycare, where she usually picks them up just after 5 p.m.
Quinn has been charged with child deprivation, police say, and is in jail. Picayune police’s investigation also revealed that the daycare was “operating in an unauthorized zone” and its occupancy permits were not up to date, and owner Wando Worley was cited on two city ordinances.
First Steps Learning Lab did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment.
“I just fear every day when I let him go that something like this could happen. You read about it, you see it on the news that babies die all the time from being left in hot cars, and to know my baby was left, it’s careless,” Breaux told WLOX. “I can’t believe the daycare’s still up and running. I’m thankful that she’s incarcerated for this, but had this been a baby in a baby carrier, that baby wouldn’t have made it through what my baby went through.”
There have been 17 hot car child deaths reported in the U.S. so far this year, according to the National Safety Council. According to their website, the temperature inside a car can go from 72 degrees to 117 degrees in one hour. Monday’s high temperature in Picayune was 95 degrees, according to The Weather Channel.
This story was originally published August 22, 2022 at 10:49 AM with the headline "3-year-old hospitalized after daycare worker leaves him in bus, Mississippi police say."
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