Delco Daycare Operator Charged With Leaving Five-Year-Old In Hot Vehicle
By Brad Segall and Matt Rivers
LANSDOWNE, Pa. (CBS) -- A Lansdowne daycare operator was charged with reckless endangerment of a child at her arraignment Thursday, after police said she accidentally left a child inside a company van Wednesday.
Norma Davis, 58, owns the PNP Family Play Center in Lansdowne.
Upper Darby police say Davis picked up three children from the Parklane School in Darby about 3 p.m. and returned to the Family Play Center on Union Street in Lansdowne.
Two of the three kids got out of the van, but the third, a five-year-old boy, apparently had fallen asleep.
It wasn't until the child's mother showed up three hours later that Davis (right) realized the boy was still in the van.
"The child was unconscious, hypothermia, severe dehydration," says Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood. "Child was rushed to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in critical but stable condition."
The afternoon temperature yesterday was in the 90s.
"It was 94 degrees outside yesterday with 73 percent humidity, so the inside of the car must have been in excess of 120 degrees," said Chitwood.
Davis was charged with child endangerment and related offenses.
While the magnitude of the incident is a first for the center, they have had issues with negligence before.
In 2012 they were put on probation after an inspection found multiple violations, including one where 12 preschool/school-age children were left alone, unsupervised, while the supervisor was in another room.
The center has since been licenses fully, however, after the state said they completed necessary changes.
The state Department of Public Welfare said it launched a new investigation Thursday as a result of yesterday's arrest.
The center remained open Thursday in the meantime.
Chitwood says Davis offered no explanation for why she forgot the child.
