WM Children’s Health Services facility closed day after child’s death

WM Children’s Health Services facility closed day after child’s death

Doors locked, lights off fol-lowing 5- year- old being left in company van

news@theeveningtimes.com

Ascent Children’s Health Services of West Memphis was closed Tuesday morning, one day after a 5-yearold boy died after being left in an Ascent transport van all day on Monday.

The parking lot was empty, there were no children at play, and the facility was dark… and Christopher Gardner Jr. is dead.

The boy was picked up in the van that would routinely take him to the Ascent facility around 6:40 a.m. on Monday, and according to investigators, that’s where he remained throughout the day until his lifeless body was discovered, still strapped into his booster seat at 3:30 p.m.

that afternoon, more than eight hours later.

There are protocols that are supposed to be in place to prevent this sort of incident from occurring. Ascent paperwork even purports to have him listed as signed into the center for the day.

A former teacher at Ascent, speaking on the condition of anonymity spoke to the Times about those protocols during her tenure there.

“Everything was always followed by the book,” she said. “After the children were unloaded you would double check to make sure no one was on there. In the summertime, you’d have two other people check the van as well. You’d get on there and look and make sure there were no other kids on there.”

Young Christopher was five. He had been going there since he was one. The former teacher offered sympathy and condolences to the family as well as the staff.

“I’ve reached out to some of them. I know it has been very, very difficult. Sometimes, I know, a simple oversight or mistake can have grave consequences.

For everybody involved it has been really difficult, for myself, for my former coworkers and even the people responsible for that van — it’s been difficult.”

As for the answer to the question everyone is asking, — how did this happen, she had no answers.

“I am still not sure. There is a policy in place that should have prevented that. Having worked there before, they are still like family to me. It’s difficult but I know it was not anything intentional. I know if they could take it back and do it over again they would.”

That fateful day, daytime highs were hovering in the low 80s, resulting in temperatures inside the closed van to reach an estimated 114 degrees in less than an hour’s time, possibly reaching as high as 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

The investigation is still underway.

By the Evening Times News Staff