A lawsuit claims a 2-year-old girl fell into a drain while playing outside Children’s Lighthouse in Prosper, Texas (McCathern PLLC).
Parents are suing a Texas day care after their 2-year-old daughter allegedly fell into a 6- or 7-foot deep drain filled with “fecal matter” outside the facility and was trapped inside for an hour before anyone noticed.
According to the lawsuit obtained by Law&Crime, the girl identified as A.B. was a student at Children’s Lighthouse (CLH) day care in Prosper, a suburb of Dallas. On the afternoon of Nov. 1, the girl was out on the playground with other children when she fell into the hole. The cover, which said “Danger do not enter fatal poison gas,” either flipped back over or was replaced, trapping her inside, the lawsuit said.
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“Defendants were responsible for ensuring its premises were safe, especially knowing full well that children ages 2-6 were present and active on the premises. At some point in time prior to 4:00 p.m., the teacher took the children inside and unknowingly left A.B. inside the covered hole to fend for herself,” plaintiff lawyers wrote.
A teacher or another employee at the day care signed the girl out of the classroom at 4:01 p.m. since she wasn’t there and no one looked to make sure she was elsewhere, according to the lawsuit. An automatic email was sent to her parents saying the girl had been checked out of the room and her father called the day care to ask why she wasn’t present in another classroom. A person answered the phone, believed to be owner Angela Wolfe who also is named in the suit, allegedly blamed the email on a “glitch” in the system and said his daughter was “100% here.”
Thinking this was odd, the father had his wife head to the day care to check on their daughter. The plaintiffs believe this is when employees realized the girl was missing.
“Despite now knowing she was missing, CLH and Wolfe never called 911 or any authorities to report her missing, as it was completely plausible that someone had kidnapped her from the premises,” the lawsuit said.
The father received another call from day care employees saying they had “found” his daughter after she “had fallen into a drain next to the splash pad,” the lawsuit said. Plaintiff lawyers say the drain was more akin to a septic tank.
“We’re talking … a big watery, swampy mess of fecal matter and all other kinds of things,” attorney Levi McCathern told Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA.
McCathern said the girl may have been submerged up to her neck.
“Luckily, it wasn’t underwater, or we’d be dealing with a fatality here,” he said.
The lawsuit argues the drain should have been fenced off because of the warning about the poison gas and the possibility of a small child falling inside. Plaintiffs also said when the parents picked the girl up she was “cold to the touch, was shivering, her lips were blue, and her fingernails were blue despite now being out of the hole for some time.” The day care never called emergency medical services to check out the girl.
Employees took the father out to the drain and tried to show them it was covered, but he picked up the lid “with little to no effort” and saw the hole was filled with “dirty cold water,” the lawsuit said. Her parents then took her to a hospital to be evaluated.
Initially, day care employees said the girl was only in the drain for 5 or 10 minutes. However, further investigation revealed the girl was trapped for closer to an hour, per the plaintiffs. Another student told the teacher responsible for the girl’s care that her father had picked her up, which is why she checked her out of the room after returning from outside, according to the lawsuit.
Plaintiff lawyers obtained messages exchanged between teachers. The teacher who found the girl called the situation “really really f—ed” and said after the girl’s father called she went looking for her. She went over near the drain and could “hear her SCREAMING,” the teacher allegedly wrote. Employees couldn’t reach her so they had a parent help them fish her out. The girl was “covered in s—. she was blue and pale. peeing out dirty water (sic),” the teacher reportedly wrote.
The lawsuit claims Wolfe sent out an email to parents “in an attempt to further mislead” them which had “numerous misstated facts or omissions.” A fence has since been installed around the drain, plaintiffs said.
Children’s Lighthouse sent the following statement to WFAA:
At Children’s Lighthouse of Prosper, every child’s safety has been and will always be our top priority. We wholeheartedly understand the concern surrounding this previous event, and we want to reassure our community that the situation that occurred on Friday, November 1st was an isolated incident that we’ve all taken very seriously.
The teacher who was responsible for the child’s supervision was terminated that day for not following the strict safety protocols we have in place.
Outside of our knowledge, the area that has always been secured was left unsecured by a third-party company doing winterization for the splash pad. To add additional safety, a fence was quickly installed around the area.
Once staff realized that the child was unaccounted for, she was found unharmed. Quickly after she was found, the child’s parents arrived and took her to seek medical attention on their own rather than at the school. It was then reported back that she was safe and unharmed.
We immediately notified state licensing authorities and have been fully cooperating with the Prosper Police Department since the event occurred, including sharing all video surveillance.
Our teachers and staff care deeply for each child at our school. We pride ourselves on keeping all our children safe and are relieved that this child was uninjured.
All Children’s Lighthouse Early Learning Schools are independently owned and operated.
-Children’s Lighthouse of Prosper Management Team
The lawsuit says the day care was negligent in training its employees and failed to properly secure the drain lid, leading to the girl’s injury. The plaintiffs are asking for an unspecified amount of damages.
