Day care hanging incident spurs $1M settlement

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The mother of a little boy who was found hanging from a jump rope on a day care playground has agreed to drop a personal injury suit in exchange for a $1 million settlement.

Natasha Brazzell alleged that her son, who was 3 at the time of the September 2013 incident, sustained a traumatic brain injury as a result of a series of failures on the part of a Burbee Place Daycare Inc. facility on West Meeting Street in Lancaster.

Her son and 13 other kids under the age of 5 were allowed to play with jump ropes on a playground at the day care, Burbee Place Early Care and Education Center, while being watched by one teacher, according to the suit.

The teacher eventually found Brazzell’s unconscious son on a slide with one end of a jump rope wrapped around his neck and the other end tied to the top of the slide. He was taken to a local hospital and later flown by helicopter to the Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte.

“You’re not supposed to give 3 and 4 year olds jump ropes,” said Kenneth Berger, a Columbia attorney who represented Brazzell. “And here they’re giving kids a box full of jump ropes on a playground that has slides and other raised platforms, which is a huge no-no.”

Berger said he had “overwhelming evidence” that the boy’s brain had been deprived of oxygen for a significant amount of time before he arrived at the emergency room. He’d soiled his pants and was clenching his teeth and his body had become stiff, according to Berger.

“All of these things were evidence of an initial brain injury, but proving its permanency is where the neurological testing came in,” he added.

A CT scan was normal and the boy tested well cognitively after the incident, according to Berger. But he asserted that the boy had been “far above average before his strangulation and some of his cognitive abilities were reduced or impaired.” However, the boy had not taken an IQ test prior to the incident.

Berger also said Brazzell testified that her son had been “mild-mannered … almost timid,” but that he changed after the injury: “It was like he had no real appreciation of danger and seemed to have almost no real appreciation for pain.”

A pediatric neurologist testified that he believed the boy’s behavior would become increasingly unstable as he aged and he would likely require more than $3.8 million in future medical care, according to Berger.

But Berger said the day care contended that the boy’s alleged brain-injury symptoms, which included attention-deficit issues, rambunctiousness and sleeplessness, were simply the behaviors of a normal child.

As a professional courtesy, Berger declined to name the day care’s attorney, Curtis Dowling of Barnes, Alford, Stork & Johnson in Columbia, but his identity was available in public court documents. He did not respond to an interview request.

In an answer to Brazzell’s complaint, the day care denied wrongdoing, though it admitted that the children were given access to jump ropes on the playground.

The settlement exhausts the day care’s insurance policy limits, according to Berger’s co-counsel, David Yarborough of Yarborough Applegate in Charleston. He added that the day care is “laden with debt,” which left the insurance money as the only recoverable financial resource.

“That’s why this settled prior to mediation,” he added.

The teacher involved in the case no longer works at Burbee, but the day care remains open, according to Berger. He said he found that several teachers at the day care, including the one who was supposed to be watching Brazzell’s son, had failed to meet state child care training requirements.

“The root cause of this whole thing was that the day care did not train its teachers. It was their ignorance to the child safety rules more than anything else,” he added. “The sad part about this is that it was entirely preventable.”

Follow Phillip Bantz on Twitter @SCLWBantz

PERSONAL INJURY

Amount: $1 million

Case name: Brazzell v. The Burbee Place Daycare, Inc.

Court: Lancaster County Circuit Court

Case No.: 2014-CP-29-00048

Date of settlement: Approved April 20

Attorneys for plaintiff: Kenneth Berger of Columbia and David Yarborough and David Lail of Yarborough Applegate in Charleston

Attorney for defendant: Curtis Dowling of Barnes, Alford, Stork & Johnson in Columbia