Sunburned Boys: Daycare Workers Fail To Use Sunscreen During Field Trip, Kids End Up In The Hospital
Two sunburned boys ended in the hospital after daycare workers allegedly failed to use sunscreen to protect their skins during a field trip.
Shaunna Braodway told BuzzFeed she picked up her sons — Conner, 7, and Trey, 5 — from the Oklahoma day care facility, Happiness Is A Learning Center, Friday afternoon and couldn’t believe her eyes. The boys were crying in pain and had horrific blisters all over their bodies, after employees took them on a field trip to a water park.
Even more appalling was that, according to Broadway, staff at the daycare were ridiculing one of the boys.
“I dropped them off at Happiness Is a Learning Center at 9 a.m., and that day they were going to Splash Pad, a local water park.
I got off work at 5 p.m. and went to pick them up, and they were clearly burned. (The employees) were actually making fun of my older son, because both boys got sunburns but he was being a ‘baby’ and crying about it.”
The family of the sunburned boys established a GoFundMe page asking for financial help, as the mother just switched jobs and will have to take time off until her sons are healed. She also has a younger child.
The fundraising site deemed the photos of the sunburned boys too graphic — and we warn you, they are — for posting on the page. However, the kids’ aunt, Amanda Harvey, shared them on Facebook, and they were picked up by news outlets.
“My poor nephews left outside while they were at HAPPINESS DAYCARE IN VINITA! MOM AND BABIES ARE AT THE HOSPITAL NOW.”
WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC IMAGES
The children’s mother told KOTV said she just wants the daycare facility to take responsibility for what happened to her kids and explained what staff told her of the events that led to the boys blisters.
“They didn’t put no sunscreen on them and no shirt and when I asked them about it, they claimed they were out of sunscreen and that they told the kids to put on their shirts, but they didn’t want to leave them on.
Then things got worse, especially with my oldest one. He started to started to complain of chest pains and not being able to breathe and his chest started swelling.”
The sunburned boys were taken to three different hospitals over the weekend, as their symptoms worsened, according to the New York Daily News. Finally, they were airlifted to Shriners Hospital for Children in Galveston, Texas, which has a unit specializing in burns.
In the end, doctors say Conner suffered third-degree burns, while Trey had second-degree sunburns. The family filed a report with police, but there have been no comments from the facility. However, the news station reports Happiness Is A Learning Center has been cited for 19 other violations in the past year, including mainly for staffing, signage, and scheduling issues.
Some commenters who claim to be current or former day care workers say that some laws forbid these facilities to apply sunscreen on kids and if parents want it done they must attend the activity. It is not clear if this is the case for Happiness Is A Learning Center.
The sunburned boys and their mother are expected to be at the hospital all week.
[Image via GoFundMe]
