A childcare worker at a daycare in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, has been arrested after biting a 5-month-old on the arm out of frustration, police have said.
The Kinderplay Child Care employee, Crystal Beck, 31, from Hardinsburg, had reportedly been looking after the child, Hayden Holt, at the time of the incident.
According to police, Beck initially told officers she did not know how the child received the injury, but later admitted she bit the child out of frustration after she scratched her face while being fed.
Beck failed to report the injury to her supervisor although she knew she was supposed to, she admitted.
There was a visible red outline of the bite mark, but Hayden’s skin was not broken, police said.
She was immediately fired by Kinderplay Child Care, according to WDRB.
In a Facebook post, Hayden’s mother, Breauna Holt, said she was outraged when she discovered Kinderplay contacted her four hours after the injury was reported.
“It’s heartbreaking what my family has been put through the last couple of days. My sweet baby was bitten by a monster,” she wrote on Kinderplay’s Facebook page on May 11. “When management wants to wait hours before contacting me by TEXT, there is something wrong!”
“Did you think the bite mark on my daughter’s wrist was going to disappear in the 4 hours it took you to contact me?! My daughter was in pain and terrified during that time,” she continued.
According to Holt’s Facebook post, the injury was reported by Kinderplay at 10:39 a.m. on May 9, but she only received a text message about the incident at 2:35 p.m., which read, “I need to talk to you about an incident involving Hayden when you have a moment.”
“Absolutely horrifying what my baby girl has been through. No excuse what so ever,” she added.
The child’s father, Dakota Holt, also took to Facebook to express his anger following the incident.
He posted on May 9, “A parent’s worst nightmare! This woman bit my 5-month-old daughter’s arm today while she was at daycare! Hard enough that it left her little arm very red with a clear bite mark and bruised!”
“When questioned by the police she said that my daughter scratched her face while feeding her so she got mad and bit her!!! Sick!!!”
Dakota explained that the owner of the daycare suggested Hayden’s arm could have been pinched, not bitten.
“The owner kept telling me in front of the police that any other daycare would have covered it up and said a toddler bit her! We took her [Hayden] to her pediatrician and she wrote a report that it was clearly a human bite wound!”
Beck was charged with third-degree criminal abuse and first-degree failure to report child dependency, neglect or abuse.
