Child Injury Lawyer Blog
By David Wolf, Attorney
Published by Child Injury Lawyer Network
In Littleton, Colorado and other cities, the new school year has begun. For most children, the first days and weeks of school are filled with fun new learning adventures, seeing friends, and making new ones. Unfortunately, the new school year has greeted some children with injuries, abuse, and neglect at the hands of child care and day care providers. In Littleton, Colorado, a child care worker showed poor judgment by duct taping a boy’s hands to his head. This bad judgment in child care resulted in the day care worker’s arrest by the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office. Matthew James McGregor, age 21, was employed for Roxborough Roxstars, a program run for before and after school care for the Douglas County School District.
Benjamin Janicki, a 19-year-old boy, was a summer hire as a day care aide at Park Hill United Methodist Children’s Center. According to Denver’s district attorney office, Janicki was arrested and faces at least felony counts of sexual abuse on three preschoolers. Janicki also faces three additional counts of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust, also felonies. Parents were told that the victims were between the ages of 3 and 4-years and that there could be more.
City officials stated the director of a Weslaco, Texas day care center was arraigned recently on a charge of injury to a child in connection to an alleged attack upon a 4-year-old boy. Yolanda Rodriguez, 55, the administrator of Happy Days Learning, allegedly assaulted the child for misbehaving. According to police, the boy had bruises on his arms, back and back of his neck.
A 2-year-old girl was seriously injured at her day care in Raleigh, North Carolina. Apparently the toddler was attempting to climb a bookcase, when the bookcase fell and hit her on top of the head. The incident is being investigated by the Tennessee Department of Human Services – specifically the supervision issue.
Two Louisiana families suffered a major tragedy after teens from both families drowned. The seven teenagers were playing in the shallow waters of the Red River when one teen stepped of the slippery ledge and plummeted into much deeper waters. The other teens tried to save the boy, but they too were overpowered by the water and taken into the deeper water. The onlooking relatives, who could also not swim, desparately screamed for help as they watched their teens vanish and drown.
Eli Rodriguez, 32, was dropping off a family member at Doodle Bug Square Day Care, when he lost control of his Buick Century and his the day care building. Five children were taken by an ambulance to a nearby hospital, all with minor injuries.
Colorado has a adopted a new law that changed the requirements for children who have to use booster seats. Under the previous law, children between the ages of 4 and 5 were required to be restrained by a booster seat while in a motor vehicle. Now, under the new law, children who are 6 and 7 are also required to be restrained by a booster seat. Also, a child’s height and weight are no longer the determining factors of whether or not a child should be restrained in a booster seat – the new law only has an age requirement affecting children under 8-years of age.
A recent study conducted at the University of Chicago revealed that children with brain injuries may have difficulty developing story-telling skills. It is estimated that 1 in 4,000 children suffer from pre- or perinatal brain lesions, a brain injury with risk factors involving both mothers and babies. In the study, which was reported in the recent issue of Developmental Science, children with brain injuries were compared with children with normal development. Each group was asked to tell a story after given a situation with a suggestive narrative. For example, “Once there was a little boy named Alan who had many different kinds of toys.” The children were prompted with questions like “Anything else?” until the children said they were done. The study found that the children with brain injuries told shorter and less complex narratives compared to the children with the typical developing children. However, each group had similar vocabulary and sentence comprehension abilities. Researches suggested the reason for the shorter and less complex narratives is that storytelling requires flexibility in word use and, therefore, may be more vulnerable to to developmental delays.
Under a new law that goes into effect August 2010 in Miami, Florida will ban lone adults at designated Miami beach playgrounds. Adults found without accompanying minors will be asked to leave, and possibly fined. The ordinance, which was passed unanimously, was proposed by Miami Beach Commissioner, Jorge Exposito, after he witnessed a man “behave lewdly” in front of children at a Miami park. However, the ordinance is only effective in 19 newly designated “child-required” playground areas.