Cleveland Mother Says Baby Was ‘Lifeless’ When She Picked Her Up From Daycare

Cleveland Mother Says Baby Was ‘Lifeless’ When She Picked Her Up From Daycare
The Port Jervis Volunteer Ambulance Corps ambulance at the Corps' bay in Port Jervis on Sept. 29, 2016. Holly Kellum/Epoch Times
Simon Veazey
Updated:

A Cleveland woman says she arrived at daycare to find that her baby daughter had stopped breathing.

Despite the mother’s desperate attempts to revive her as she phoned 911, the 3-month-old was pronounced dead on arrival at the local hospital.

Taylor Bush told ABC10 that when she arrived to pick up her daughter, Di’Yanni Griffin, on June 18, she found that the owner’s sister was filling in.

“Her sister was like, ‘Oh, Di’Yanni was breathing heavy today,’“ Bush told the news outlet. ” I said, ‘Why didn’t anybody call me?’ She was like ‘Oh.’ She didn’t have nothing to say basically,” Bush said.

But as Bush headed out of the door to her home—situated in the apartment above—she noticed something was wrong: Di’Yanni wasn’t moving, and her color was off.

“I close the door behind me so I’m like, ‘Hey, mama baby.’... I realize her neck is, just... she’s just lifeless,” she told Fox News.

She knocked on the door, and went back into the daycare and called 911 while she tried to revive her daughter.

According to Bush, meanwhile, the daycare provider’s sister was calling the daycare provider.

“Why aren’t you trying to call police?” she said.

They were taken to the hospital by ambulance but were too late to revive the infant.

According to local reports, authorities say the coroner currently believes the girl’s death was natural but are awaiting an official cause of death.

When she was pronounced dead, Bush said she couldn’t let go.

“They could not find a pulse for my daughter at all,” she told News5Cleveland. “I begged them—the hospital—to keep working on her because they had already pronounced her dead,” she said

Bush told ABC10 that the hospital staff “told me about how cold my daughter was that she had stopped breathing a long time ago.”

She told Fox that her daughter was “basically already dead,” when she was handed to her.

The daycare owner, Danielle Townsend, told Fox News that her sister works at the daycare, and that the infant was alive while in her sister’s care.

When her sister called and said the baby was “breathing fast,” Townsend tried calling Bush but said she could not get in touch. She told Fox that no one from the daycare called 911.

Un undated image of the building on Giddings Road Cleveland registered as a Licensed Type B Family Child Care Home by Nana's Home Daycare. (Screenshot/Googlemaps)
Un undated image of the building on Giddings Road Cleveland registered as a Licensed Type B Family Child Care Home by Nana's Home Daycare. Screenshot/Googlemaps
According to local reports, the home is Nana’s Home Daycare. A recent inspection report found that the daycare lacked an up-to-date first aid and CPR certificate, as well as current infant and child CPR certification.
Inspectors also found dangerous conditions outside including poison ivy, protruding bolts, visible mold, and broken glass. “The front porch has a large hole in it which could allow a person to fall through the porch,” said the report.

The report also noted unsanitary conditions in the bathroom which lacked toilet paper. In total, the report noted 20 areas in which it was non-compliant.

Bush said that so far the provider has shown “no remorse, no apologies, not anything, no ‘sorry for your loss,’ no condolences,” she told ABC.

“I’m hurt; I blame myself,” Bush told Fox.

The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services released the following statement to ABC 10:

“ODJFS is monitoring this tragic situation very closely. County JFS agencies are responsible for inspections of in-home child care, with oversight by ODJFS. The county agency is conducting an investigation and actively working with child protective services and law enforcement. ODJFS would make the final determination on whether to suspend Nana’s Home Daycare license if the county agency recommends suspension.”

Simon Veazey
Simon Veazey
Freelance Reporter
Simon Veazey is a UK-based journalist who has reported for The Epoch Times since 2006 on various beats, from in-depth coverage of British and European politics to web-based writing on breaking news.
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