Two Brothers Had To Be Airlifted To Hospital After Daycare ‘Ran Out Of Sunscreen’ On Water Park Trip

by Greg Campbell | July 28, 2015 4:05 pm

Warning: graphic images ahead.

Two children were entrusted into the care of a daycare facility which took the kids to a waterpark. However, the daycare allegedly “ran out of sunscreen” and as a result, the children sizzled like overcooked bacon.[1]

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An Oklahoma mother watched in horror as the burns her children suffered while playing outside at a daycare developed into blisters that sent them to the hospital.

Shaunna Broadway, 26, of Vinita, enrolled her children in Happiness Is a Learning Center, but has now filed a police report after they were taken to a local mini water park and not given sunscreen.

Her children Conner Harvey, 7, and his brother Tray Wells, 5, have become covered in blisters from the burns they received, and taken to a hospital out of state after the skin issues escalated to dangerous levels.

Broadway, a single working mother, took them to a Tulsa hospital but was told around 2am Monday morning that the kids needed to be flown immediately to Shriner’s Hospital for Children in Galveston, Texas, because of the severity of the burns.

Tray has second-degree sunburns while his brother Conner, who has paler skin and red hair, has third-degree burns.

The children’s grandfather Wayne Broadway told Daily Mail Online that the burnt skin had been removed from both the boys and that they were now in wraps that were being changed regularly.

Skin grafts have been discussed as a possibility if the condition of the burns does not improve, he said.

The elder Broadway is heading down to Galveston Tuesday morning to be with his daughter, who has faced the challenge alone with her boys.

She watched as the burns, sustained Friday, developed into blisters that caused her sons excruciating pain that was not eased with traditional creams.

‘Apparently the swelling and pain on his back was so bad that he was having pressure on his chest,’ she told Buzzfeed[3].

Broadway is seen trying to comfort her children as they yell in pain and complain that their burns itch.

In one graphic photo Conner is seen with a very large blister on his back, surrounded by anti-burn Silvadene cream that has become cracked as blisters form beneath it.

The children are expected to be in Galveston for up to five days.

Their mother says that she just wants the daycare to take responsibility for the injuries and filed her police report about the center on Sunday.

‘Right’s right, and wrong’s wrong, and there’s no excuse for this,’ she said.

‘I’m a single parent, and I do all I can. I work Monday through Friday, and they have to go to daycare.’

No other children were reported with serious burns after the Friday water park outing, when residents were warned that the heat index could reach 115 degrees.

‘When I asked them about it, they claimed they were out of sunscreen and that they told the kids to put on their shirts, but they didn’t want to leave them on,’ she told News on 6[4].

‘But whose the adult and whose the child?’ Wayne Broadway said.

‘[The employees] were actually making fun of my older son, because both boys got sunburns but he was being a ‘baby’ and crying about it,’ Shaunna Broadway said.

Management at the day care did not respond to request for comment from reporters on Monday.

The center has been cited by the Department of Human Services for violations 19 times in the past ten months, though the violations were mostly for staffing and scheduling issues.

DHS officials are also investigating in addition to the police.

I am not typically one to armchair-quarterback a decision made by parents or by caretakers. The government is already far too invasive with their declarations of what is and what is not acceptable. However, it seems ludicrous that these boys should suffer like this because the daycare allegedly “ran out of sunscreen.” Letting the children fry to a crisp is not an acceptable alternative to buying more sunscreen or going back to the daycare facility.

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