Mother Speaks Out After Daycare Forgets 2-Year-Old Boy At Brooklyn Park
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A Brooklyn mother was furious Friday that her son's daycare center lost him for several hours.
As CBS2's Sonia Rincon reported, police said the 2-year-old boy, Ethan Huachi, was found inside the Sunset Park playground around 1 p.m. Thursday.
Ethan was brought to the park with his daycare group.
The NYPD told CBS2 a daycare employee miscounted the children and left the boy behind.
Someone found Ethan and called police, and he was taken to the 72nd Precinct station. A tweet with his photo helped locate his mother.
And on Friday, his mother was not pleased at all.
The Quality of Life Academy daycare center that Ethan attended was closed on Friday while it was being investigated. Ethan's mother, Diana Huachi, got the call around 4:30 p.m. Thursday that her son had been found.
She said she was told "first, to calm down, that he's fine. And I'm like, 'I cannot calm down. You're going to tell me my son was in lost the park, he's in the precinct, and for me to calm down?' I couldn't, I just – I had no words, I was shocked."
A woman found Ethan sleeping in the park hours after his day care group left.
"If it wasn't for that lady, I mean, I don't know what else could have happened," Huachi said.
Huachi was furious that no one at daycare realized he was gone all afternoon.
"I thought maybe, what if some sick person out there could have just taken him and ran off, and who knows? I may not have ever seen him again. Or what if he's hurt?" she said.
It wasn't just a good Samaritan here that helped reunite Ethan and his mom. Another woman who saw his picture on social media knew his name and what daycare center he was from.
"I saw there was a child missing and we went into action," said Renee Giordano of the Sunset Park Business Improvement District.
The 72nd Precinct got Giordano's attention by including the business improvement district in its tweet, and she put the picture on the district's Facebook page. Someone recognized Ethan within moments and she called the precinct captain.
"He knew when I first got the information. And maybe three or four minutes later, I called him up and I said, 'OK, the child's name is Ethan, and the daycare is going to call you,'" Giordano said, "and he was just wowed that we got it that fast."
Diana Huachi was grateful to all involved, but still could not believe the day care center's mistake.
"The fact that they weren't responsible enough to take care of my child, while he's outside and leave him there and then not notice it until they saw that picture on Twitter, I mean, imagine if they wouldn't have seen that picture," said the boy's mother Diana Huachi. "Would they have not noticed? Did they not know?"
Huachi said she wants the daycare center shut down for good.