Samantha Cabrera said she dropped off her child at daycare last Thursday when she got a frantic call from her husband later that afternoon.
“My husband said, you have to rush over ASAP to the daycare,” she said. “And I said, hey, what’s going on? Then he said just go to the daycare.”
Cabrera said her 1-and-a-half-year-old son, Ozias Veloso, suffered second-degree burns on his leg at the Decroly Learning Child Care Center in Homestead on Nov. 16.
According to an accident report from the daycare that Cabrera showed NBC6, the child went to reach for a toy and somehow the water and milk in a bottle warmer fell on top of the child’s leg.
“He has a huge burn on his leg. I didn’t know the severity of it because it was covered in gauze,” she said. “I’m not sure exactly why there was a bottle warmer anywhere near a child. I don’t know if they weren’t paying attention or what exactly was happening in that moment.”
The daycare incident report stated that the employee put cold water and a bandage on the child’s leg, but Cabrera said they didn’t call paramedics.
According to regulations by the Florida Department of Children and Families, bottle-warming devices must be inaccessible to children at all times at all childcare centers. The devices must be maintained on the lowest possible temperature setting and must be secured to prevent them from tipping over, splashing or spilling.
The hot water, in this case, left Ozias with blistered and peeling skin.
“Second-degree burns. They were pretty bad,” Cabrera said. “His skin at first was just peeling off and then after it started bubbling. The water and the milk must have been extremely hot for it to cause that bad of a burn.”
Ozias was treated at HCA Florida Kendall Hospital. Doctors told Cabrera that Ozias can’t get sun for a year and is going to have a scar for life.
Cabrera said she hasn’t received any updated information from the daycare on what’s going to happen to the employee involved in the incident. She is working with an attorney as she looks into legal action to hold someone accountable.
Ozias had been at the daycare since he was 4 months old, but his mother is not sending him back to the center after this burn. As Cabrera is waiting for her second baby due in only one week, she is trying to figure out what she’ll do next for childcare.
“I don’t know how I’m going to trust another daycare now. I’m having trouble every time I call a daycare now,” she said. “I almost go into tears just thinking about having to put my whole trust into a daycare and I just don’t want it to happen to my son again or any other parent because a daycare is where you trust. You’re supposed to trust those people to take care of your child and then something like this happens and it’s like are they even doing your job.”
Online records by DCF show this daycare have been in compliance with all their recent inspections. NBC6 has reached out to Decroly Learning Childcare Center about this incident, and we have not yet heard back.
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Source: NBC Miami
