State Says Daycare Taped Children's Mouths

Cruel. A 4-month-old boy was found in a darkened room at a day care center with a pacifier taped into his mouth, the Tennessee Department of Human Services announced Wednesday.

wsmv reports that the department responded Tuesday to an anonymous complaint that a caregiver at Noah's Ark Nursery and Preschool in Jefferson City was taping babies' mouths shut. What is wrong with people? Well, when they arrived, an investigator heard muffled whining from the bathroom and found a boy's mouth covered with two pieces of two-inch-wide clear packing tape over a pacifier. The day care center was served with a suspension order from DHS and closed on Wednesday. A hearing was set for Thursday before a judge. The owner Kim Trentham has run the daycare since 1993. She did not answer repeated calls to the center or her house.

"It's absolutely unbelievable that this would happen," Johnson said. "They have no respect or concern for life. The child could have died."

According to the suspension order, the caretaker Angela Day Gentry told officers that the taping incident had occurred before, and that placing the tape on the child's mouth was a "mutual" idea between herself and Kim Ball, the other caretaker in the room. She told police that Ball actually placed the tape on the child.

"The child literally could have ingested the tape, aspirated, or had breathing problems very quickly (among other possibilities) without an adult's knowing of any crisis," the report stated.

The center received a three-star rating, which is the highest possible, by the DHS in their latest evaluation. But in March 2005, it was investigated after a child it was caring for died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). At the time, the department found no wrongdoing or foul play. This goes beyond stupidity. The child could suffer brain damage as well from lack of oxygen.