Feb. 19—A Kittery day care didn’t have any carbon monoxide detectors in the building when 11 people were hospitalized last week because of exposure to the gas, according to a report from the state fire marshal’s office.
A parent shared the report with the Press Herald after it was sent out by the day care owner, but a spokesperson for the office refused to discuss it or answer questions, citing an ongoing investigation.
The fire marshal’s office has said no alarms were sounding in the day care last Wednesday afternoon when employees decided to evacuate Building Blocks Learning Center because some children and staff were feeling ill.
All of the town’s police and fire units responded to the scene. Of the 27 children and 10 staff, 11 people were treated at Portsmouth Regional Hospital for potential carbon monoxide poisoning.
The Office of State Fire Marshal later said the source of the leak was a propane-powered concrete saw being improperly used by workers in another business next door to the day care.
Maine law requires every child care facility to be equipped with smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. But it wasn’t immediately clear last week whether the facility had them. On Thursday, the fire marshal’s office said in a statement that it planned to consult with the alarm company to determine whether the day care had the correct detectors.
A day later, the department filed a report that listed the absence of carbon monoxide detectors among more than a dozen code violations, according to the copy shared with the Press Herald. Other problems included missing emergency lights outside one of the building’s bathrooms, “no fire extinguishers throughout the daycare space,” and compatibility problems between parts of the fire alarm system in different parts of the daycare.
A spokesperson for fire marshal’s office, Shannon Moss, declined to answer questions about the report, the violations and why they didn’t prevent the business from passing previous inspections.
View this document on Scribd
Building Blocks owner Alaina Kelley sent the report to parents on Friday with a letter explaining some of the deficiencies. She wrote that she’s not sure why the fire marshal’s office would have allowed the center to begin the Maine DHHS licensing process two years ago.
The facility is closed indefinitely and can’t be reopened until the violations are rectified, she told parents.
“Many of these items should have been rectified before I ever proceeded with being licensed,” Kelley wrote in the letter. “I trusted the Fire Marshall’s office to tell me that everything was code compliant. This is why we have their department.”
She said someone in the fire marshal’s office told her the facility could have been approved because the inspector couldn’t tell the difference between a smoke alarm and combination alarm, which would detect both carbon monoxide and fire.
Kelley has not responded to several interview requests since last week.
A NEAR DISASTER
One parent, who asked not to be identified because she was worried about potential retribution, said she was never notified of the incident before she arrived at the day care to pick up her child. She said she pulled in to the parking lot just before 4 p.m. and panicked when she saw the flashing lights of the ambulances and fire trucks. She ran over to the teachers, who said her daughter was OK.
The gas infiltrated the facility around nap time, when staff noticed the children didn’t want to wake up, the parent said. Some employees and children had started vomiting and feeling dizzy.
The mother said it’s frustrating that the owner won’t take full responsibility for what happened and that the state failed to approve a safe place for her child.
“My daughter could’ve died that day,” she said.
She said she’s never taking her daughter back to Building Blocks. For now, she is paying $500 per week for a nanny while weighing other options. Other parents are scrambling to find child care options as well, she said.
Kelley also owns other day care facilities in Maine, including Leaps & Bounds Learning Center in South Berwick and Stepping Stones Learning Center in Eliot.
This story will be updated.
Copy the Story Link
Read the full article here