Toddler "traumatised" after being left locked in daycare
A mother went to collect her child from Kindcare Learning Center, north of Miami, to find her 2-year-old daughter locked inside alone at 6:30 pm on a Wednesday.
After lights had been turned off and workers had left for the day, Stephanie Martinez reportedly saw her child peeking through the window of the locked childcare center.
In a video recording of a 911 call Ms Martinez shared with NBC Miami, the room appears dark and Ms Martinez can be heard telling a dispatcher that she could see her daughter crying.
“She was able to push a chair up to the door and call for my name, and that was the only reason I was able to see her, ” Ms Martinez said.
Fire department workers pried open the door of the Sunrise Boulevard day care and found the girl in good health roughly 20 minutes later, according to the Plantation Police Department incident report.
Ms Martinez shared that her daughter is “super traumatised.”
Police later learned that the day care worker responsible for checking out children left at 6:20 pm and locked the doors. The police report does not say if criminal charges are expected and further investigations are being made by the local child protection agency.
A spokesperson for KinderCare, which owns the facility, said in a statement that while the company was “thankful the child was quickly found and was safe, this incident should not have happened.”