A two-year-old girl was found dead in a day care center van after staff left her inside for two hours in the sweltering afternoon sun.
Jasmine Green is thought to have fallen asleep between the seats on the ride back from a field trip to Chuck E. Cheese in Jonesboro, Georgia.
When the children arrived back at the center, staff failed to notice she was still in the vehicle—and didn’t realize she was missing for more than two hours, as temperatures soared into the 90s.
Her death came just one day after a nine-month-old boy in South Carolina was found dead when his father left him inside his car for four hours.
It also emerged that Marlo’s Magnificent Early Learning Center had been cited by the state before for not properly documenting a field trip, and was supposed to have introduced a proper system by the end of March.
Jasmine’s distraught parents sobbed outside as they questioned how the staff could have left her in the vehicle, where temperatures inside are likely to have reached up to 138F after 15 minutes.
April McAlister said: ‘They left my baby in the van… forgetting that she was in there. I want to see justice served.’
The children went on the trip yesterday afternoon, returning at about 1:30pm.
Staff checked all the children off the van and back into the center – including Jasmine’s four-year-old brother, Savion.
But they left the little girl behind by mistake, and didn’t realize she was missing until 3.30pm.
They immediately rang police and Jasmine was taken to Southern Regional Medical Center, but it was too late.
Jasmine and her brother had attended Marlo’s daycare center since they were babies.
Their father, Checo Green, told Channel 11: ‘My daughter trusted them folks like she trusted me. I don’t know why they would leave my daughter out of all the people when they know her.’
He and his wife are now demanding that the daycare center be shut down.
Mrs. McAlister said the first she knew was when staff called her and said she should go to the hospital – but they didn’t say why.
She said: ‘And when I got there, they told me my baby went into cardiac arrest. They left my baby in the van.’
Mrs. McAlister sobbed into her husband’s arms as she said: ‘They took my baby! She was a beautiful girl. She was so smart and just lovable and playful.’
Mr. Green said: ‘It’s hot. It’s Georgia. Who forgets children in a van? Who?’
Police lieutenant Tina Daniels told Channel 11: ‘Zero seconds, zero seconds is the amount of time a child should be left alone in a car to prevent something like this from happening.’
Officers are investigating her death, but no charges have yet been filed.
