SPRING, Texas – An upset mother is looking for answers after her 3-month-old daughter’s arm ended up broken following her first day at daycare in Spring.
“It was just very tough to see her in pain,” said the child’s mother Alecia Jenkins.
Jenkins said she dropped her daughter, CJ, at Children’s Lighthouse Spring - Harmony. A few hours later, she said she checked the monitors inside the daycare to check on her.
“What I saw was one of the workers reach over into her under the crib to pick her up and then I saw a panic,” said Jenkins.
Jenkins said after seeing other daycare workers crowding around her daughter, she called the daycare to see what was wrong and rushed to pick her up.
“I could tell that she was in distress. And so I saw that I automatically thought to take her to the emergency room,”
Jenkins said doctors and x-rays later confirmed CJ’s arm was broken. She said she has since filed a report with authorities, hired an attorney, and has also filed a lawsuit.
“Dropping her off at daycare was scary in itself and then for that to happen the first day, it just crushed me,” she said.
George Oginni, Jenkin’s attorney from Leo & Oginni Trial Lawyers said, “There should be that type of trust and protection in our community. And it should start here, that’s we ultimately want to shed light on.”
In a statement, the Children’s Lighthouse Spring Harmony said:
“The safety and health of all Children’s Lighthouse students is our top priority. Children’s Lighthouse of Spring-Harmony has established a reputation for being a warm, welcoming and safe environment for young children and their families.
We know there are news reports being shared about the broken arm of a child who was in our care, and we take this matter extremely seriously. As soon as we became aware of the child’s injury, we immediately contacted the child’s mother, sought medical attention for the child, and reported the incident to the Texas Department of Health and Human Services.
We are cooperating fully with all investigations, and initial findings show that no staff member or any other individual was near the child when the child first started demonstrating signs of distress. While we have no reason to believe that the teacher who reported the possible injury caused the injury, out of an abundance of caution, that teacher is on administrative leave at this time. We conduct background checks on all teachers and staff and conduct continuous oversight of their activities throughout the day. We have a no tolerance policy as it relates to any type of mistreatment of children.
As reported, the child’s mother did file a lawsuit against us before the conclusion of any investigations, and we deny all claims and allegations contained in the lawsuit. At this time, we cannot comment further.
KPRC 2 also reached out to CPS about the case who said the Texas Department Family & Protective Services opened an investigation on April 13. In a statement they added:
“DFPS will investigate whether or not abuse or neglect occurred in this case, and we will also investigate the daycare operation for any deficiencies in state standards. Findings from our investigation will be turned over to the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), the state agency that licenses and regulates daycare in Texas.”
As the investigation remains ongoing, Jenkins said it’ll be a few more weeks before CJ is fully recovered.
“Something wrong happened to my daughter. At this point I just really want to make sure that it doesn’t happen to anybody else,” said Jenkins.