(Photo Credit: CBS4) A daycare van sits outside the Jomiba Learning Center where a child was found dead on Tuesday, July 12, 2011.
Healthy Living
TALLAHASSEE (CBS4) — A South Florida senator said Thursday she’ll again push for legislation calling for alarms for daycare vans in the wake of the death of a toddler at a Homestead daycare center.
Sen. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, pushed for legislation last year, “The Haile Brockington Act,” (SB 1140), which passed the Senate but wasn’t adopted in the House.
The law is named after 2-year-old Haile Brockington, who died last summer after daycare workers at the now-closed Katie’s Kids in Delray Beach left her in a hot van.
The measure would have required commercial daycare vehicles to have alarms that alert them when children remain in the van.
“The safety of our children must be our top priority as lawmakers,” said Sachs. “The installation of these alarms will ensure that not one more child needlessly loses his life.”
Twenty-two month-old Dominicue Andrews’ body was found near a van parked at the Jomiba Learning Center around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday. While police have not confirmed whether or not Dominicue died after being left in the van, sources have told CBS4 News that the van’s driver reportedly admitted to police he found the boy’s body inside the van.
The driver of the van reportedly told police that he normally checks the van every day to make sure all of the children are out of it, but on Tuesday he might have missed the boy, CBS4′s Jim DeFede said.
(©2011 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The News Service of Florida contributed to this report.)
