Daycare Being Investigated After Toddler Runs Into Traffic

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A preschool in Mandeville, La, is under investigation after a 3-year-old was able to escape from the property and run into traffic.

The Department of Education, which manages daycare licensing across Louisiana, is heading up the investigation in KidZone on Highway 59.  The St. Tammany Sheriff’s Office has also taken a report on the incident.

August Clark, a Mandeville-area truck driver, said that the situation he found himself in last Thursday still shakes him.

“When I went to make my right hand turn onto Solar Court, out of, just, out of the blue, a little kid was running towards me,” he said, “He was in the middle of the road and I almost hit him.”

Clark slammed his brakes, then blocked the traffic to protect the child, who he later learned was only 3-years-old.

Clark jumped out of his truck and grabbed the child as the toddler was headed straight for rush-hour traffic on Highway 59 in Mandeville.

“I said I don’t know where he come from, but what I’m gonna do, I hear the kids over there playing in the back over at KidsZone, and so I’m going to go over there and see if they’re missing a kid,” he said.

Clark said that the daycare didn’t even know that the child was missing, but didn’t take very long to figure out that he had gotten out of the preschool’s play yard through a hole in the back fence.

The child’s mother said she wasn’t notified about the incident until the following day, and wasn’t given the full details until she met with the State Department of Education investigator, who was notified by Clark.

Clark said that he hopes the incident is a wake-up call to the daycare facility and a warning to other parents about who they leave their children with.

The state has not confirmed if the daycare had any prior complaints on file or had been investigated in the past.