Parents say Calumet City day care's negligence caused 2-year-old's death
Jaylin, who had epilepsy, was taking a nap at Grandma Jones Daycare when he had a seizure and choked on his own vomit Feb. 20, according to attorneys representing Jaylin's mother, Jasmine Bailey.
Bailey filed a lawsuit Thursday alleging Jaylin was left unsupervised during nap time, which allowed him to suffocate as staff members failed to respond to his seizure.
Grandma Jones Daycare referred questions to its attorney, Jeff Escher, who didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.
Bailey referred to her son, who she said stayed on a ventilator at the University of Chicago Medical Center on South Maryland Avenue in Chicago for four days following the seizure, in the present tense during a news conference Tuesday in Chicago's Daley Plaza.
'Jaylin is amazing. He's so bright beyond his years,' Bailey said. 'One of my favorite things about my son, despite the fact that he's 2-years-old, he knows how to count in Spanish.'
'He's a gravitational pull,' said Jayln Branch, Jaylin Jr.'s father.
Bailey's lawsuit alleges day care staff were negligent in leaving Jaylin unsupervised during nap time and, upon discovering his condition, failed to complete steps laid out in his action plan that could have saved his life.
The day care allegedly knew Jaylin had epilepsy since he was first brought there in October 2023, with his parents and Grandma Jones staff completing an action plan to handle any emergency situations that could arise from his condition, according to the lawsuit.
That action plan instructs day care staff to call 911 if Jaylin had a compulsive seizure for longer than five minutes, if he had repeated seizures without regaining consciousness or if he was having breathing difficulty, said Bailey's attorneys, who work for C. Norris Law Group
Attorneys Cierra Norris and Evan Finneke also provided medication Bailey had provided to the day care to use during a seizure, which they said was left unopened Feb. 20.
Bailey is seeking $50,000 in damages from Grandma Jones Daycare, according to the complaint. She is also pushing for a state investigation into the facility.
'For other parents whose children are in day care, I would say to just make sure you're doing a thorough look — check, check, check,' Bailey said. 'I can't express that enough. If you're having a weird feeling, go up there and check.'
ostevens@chicagotribune.com
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hamilton Spectator
a day ago
- Hamilton Spectator
PHOTO ESSAY: Many Californians lack safe tap water and don't trust cleanup efforts
THERMAL, Calif. (AP) — Agustin and Ricarda Toledo loaded eight empty 5-gallon jugs onto their truck and drove to a water store some 14 miles from their Southern California home, just as they've done almost weekly for years. The couple, originally from Mexico, planned to make dozens of chicken tamales for their five children and 13 grandchildren that weekend, and the limited flow of clean, safe water from their home filter wouldn't suffice. 'We can't consume the water; we can't use it' to drink or cook, said Ricarda, a retired farmworker whose family lives in and co-owns a mobile home park, speaking in Spanish. 'We'd like to have potable water.' In the agriculturally rich Eastern Coachella Valley , water is a source of worry. What flows from many people's taps contains health-damaging arsenic, and in areas where the issue has been resolved, distrust about the tap water lingers. Many rely on water donations or drive miles to fill water jugs and buy packs of bottles. Residents here are mostly low-income Latino and Indigenous farmworkers whose only affordable housing options are mobile home parks served by small, outdated systems more likely to violate drinking water rules . Luz Gallegos, executive director of Training Occupational Development Educating Communities, or TODEC, an immigrant and farmworker justice group, said people live in places with contaminated water because they have no other choice. 'Our community right now is not thinking of prevention. Our community is thinking of survival,' Gallegos said. More than a decade after California legislatively recognized that all residents have the right to clean water, more than 878,000 people were connected to failing water systems, many of which can increase their risk of cancer or other serious health issues, according to 2024 state data, the last year available. The Environmental Protection Agency has been working with a local nonprofit to restore safe drinking water to some Eastern Coachella residents. Last year, the agency announced that more than 900 people could safely drink and cook with tap water again. Distrust of tap water is widespread Many still fear the tap — an issue not unique to the area. Flint, Michigan's water crisis that began in 2014 eroded public trust of government and tap water. Even after high levels of lead were reduced to well below a state threshold, many residents still won't drink or cook with it . It's a distrust most common among non-white populations, research shows. A recent study on drinking water behaviors and perceptions in Evanston, Illinois, a suburban city north of Chicago, found, in part, that people who drank mostly bottled water were more likely to be Black, Indigenous or other people of color. Compared with white respondents, they were more than three times more likely to distrust tap water. The finding that minority groups in Evanston were more likely to distrust tap water was 'remarkably consistent' with research elsewhere, said Sera Young, a study co-author and co-director at the Center for Water Research at Northwestern University. 'It's a global phenomenon,' Young said. Respondents' main concern was contamination. A lack of trust in government and negative experiences with water were among other reasons. 'People who thought that they had been harmed by their water in the past were more likely to think they would be harmed by the water in future,' Young said. That's true for Martha. For 18 years, she and her husband lived in the Eastern Coachella Valley's Oasis Mobile Home Park, where the EPA found high levels of naturally occurring arsenic in the tap water in 2019. Martha, who is in the country illegally and spoke under the condition that only her middle name be used, said the water sometimes smelled like rotten eggs. An itchy rash would sometimes break out over her body when she showered, and her hair would fall off in clumps. She thinks the water was to blame. Martha and her family now live in a new place and have been told the tap water is safe to consume. 'We don't trust it,' Martha said. They buy water at stores or pick up bottled water at one of TODEC's offices, where plastic-wrapped packs cram a closet. The group provides free water to many of the area's residents and organizes know-your-rights workshops in farm fields, among other things. Perceptions can cause cascading effects Anisha Patel, a pediatrics professor at Stanford University who has studied drinking water access and tap water perceptions for years, said immigrants from countries with unsafe tap water can also bring those perceptions here and low-income families are more likely to distrust the tap because they may live in older homes. These perceptions can have significant negative impacts. People are more likely to consume sugary drinks, eat out and spend limited money on bottled water — upward of 10% of their household income, said Patel. Microplastics found in containers like bottled water, researchers are learning, may be harmful. Then there's the environmental impacts — single-use bottled beverages create enormous waste. Convincing people to drink from the tap is not easy, but experts have some recommendations based on their research findings. That includes government funding to improve plumbing in people's homes and investing in community-trusted groups to implement water testing programs and educational campaigns, said Silvia R. González, co-director of research at the UCLA Latino Politics and Policy Institute who lead a study in 2023 exploring drinking water distrust in Latino communities. 'It's been something that we've been trying to understand for the past 10, 15 years now, and I don't think we're closer to solving the issue, but we definitely see similarities across different communities,' especially among immigrant, Spanish-speaking and other non-English-speaking groups, González said. Back in the California desert, water jugs and stacked packs of bottled water are a common sight inside and outside homes. The kitchen in Virgilio Galarza Rodriguez's mobile home is cramped by bottled water — boxes and shrink-wrapped packs piled four high, a drinking water dispenser topped by a 5-gallon (19-liter) jug with a spare nearby and more loose bottles scattered around. The Galarzas, raising three boys, drank and cooked with tap water 16 years before a 2021 inspection by the EPA revealed arsenic at levels more than six times the federal limit. Despite now having filters and regular water tests, the family still worries. 'They tell us it's safe to drink, but we don't really trust it,' Galarza said, speaking in Spanish. ___ The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP's environmental coverage, visit
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Artisight introduces voice-activated interpreters into hospital platform
Artisight has introduced voice-activated medical interpreters on its Smart Hospital Platform, enabling clinicians to communicate with patients in over 240 languages. This innovation, developed in collaboration with LanguageLine Solutions, provides 24/7 access to medical interpreters, including American Sign Language, and is compatible with any hospital's existing translation services. Clinicians will now be able to access interpreters during patient encounters with a verbal cue. An interpreter appears on the Artisight-connected TV when providers say "OK Artisight – Spanish Interpreter." This feature addresses the critical need for immediate medical interpretation in the US, where one in five residents speak a language other than English at home. Artisight CEO and co-founder Dr Andrew Gostine said: 'For the first time, clinicians can bring an interpreter in the room with a voice command. This is another example of how we're building the infrastructure to bring advanced technology into hospitals, eliminating friction for clinicians and patients at the bedside.' Studies have indicated that patients with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) are less likely to receive preventive care and more likely to suffer adverse health outcomes. The availability of on-demand interpretation aims to bridge language and cultural divides, enhancing diagnoses, treatment adherence, and overall medical outcomes. In addition, language access significantly improves staff efficiency. The Voice-Activated Interpreter service is now accessible at several hospitals using Artisight's Smart Hospital Platform. Remote caregivers can also use LanguageLine's audio and video interpretation services, ensuring language support is available irrespective of location. Artisight's platform has already been successful in reducing nurses' administrative workload by over 30 minutes per shift. The introduction of on-demand interpreters in patient rooms further streamlines clinicians' tasks. This latest feature supports Artisight's mission to revolutionise healthcare through advanced AI technologies, including NVIDIA's TensortRT, Triton, and Jetson NX GPUs. "Artisight introduces voice-activated interpreters into hospital platform" was originally created and published by Hospital Management, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
The Hill
3 days ago
- The Hill
Missouri AG sues Planned Parenthood for allegedly lying about dangers of abortion drugs
Missouri is suing Planned Parenthood for allegedly lying to patients about the risks of the abortion medication mifepristone. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Jefferson City arguing that Planned Parenthood's claims that the abortion drug is safer than many other medications including penicillin and Tylenol are untrue and violate the state's consumer-protection law. Bailey claims that the nonprofit organization has lied about the safety of the drug to 'cut costs and boost revenue,' according to the lawsuit. The complaint also requests a court order to stop Planned Parenthood from 'continuing to promote the falsehoods,' in Missouri and for the organization to pay more than $1.8 million in civil penalties. The attorney general's office is also asking for the organization to be fined $1,000 in damages to every woman in the Show-Me State that has received abortion medication through one of is providers in the past five years. On top of this, it asks that the organization reimburse the state for Medicaid and other tax-payer-funded emergency care provided to people who suffered complications after taking mifepristone. 'We are going to hold these charlatans and death dealers accountable,' Bailey wrote in a post on social platform X about the suit. The crux of the lawsuit's argument comes down to a disagreement over how many people suffer adverse health effects after taking mifepristone. On the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) warning label for the drug, it states that between 2.9 percent and 4.6 percent of people who have taken it along with misoprostol report visiting an emergency room afterwards. There are two drugs typically needed for a medication abortion: mifepristone and misoprostol. Mifepristone stops the pregnancy from growing while misoprostol induces cramping and bleeding to empty the uterus. More than 100 scientific studies across decades have looked at the efficacy and safety of the pair and all of them have found the drugs safe for use, according to an analysis from The New York Times. Bailey's lawsuit claims that the FDA's label is inaccurate and that 'recent studies' suggest the complication rate is much higher. The lawsuit does not cite a specific study to back up its claim and a spokesperson for the attorney general's office did not answer questions from The Hill about what data was used to back up its claim. The lawsuit does echo findings outlined in a deeply flawed study published in April by the conservative think tank the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) which states that after analyzing more than 865,000 prescribed mifepristone abortions, it determined that nearly 11 percent of women experienced a 'serious adverse event.' That's nearly 22 times higher than what the FDA reports. Bailey's lawsuit references a 'dataset' of more than 850,000 mifepristone abortions that identified 'serious adverse events' in more than 10 percent of women who took the drug. Medical researchers have criticized the EPPC study for its lack of transparency and for flaws in its methodology. One of the largest hiccups of the study is its inclusion of emergency room visits as one of the 'serious adverse events' that can happen after taking the abortion pill, health experts say. The EPPC study breaks down 'serious adverse events' into categories including hemorrhage, sepsis and emergency room visits. It looks as if emergency room visits were counted as adverse events even if health care workers determined the patient was healthy and released them without treatment. Some people might go to an emergency room after taking the abortion pill to confirm that they are no longer pregnant or to make sure that the bleeding they are experiencing is normal, two principal research scientists at the Guttmacher Institute noted in an op-ed last month. The lawsuit is the latest attack from conservative lawmakers on Planned Parenthood. Under the GOP's new tax and spending bill, the organization would lose its ability to receive Medicaid reimbursements for health services it provides for one year. The nonprofit sued the Trump administration over the provision and a federal judge granted the organization's request for a temporary injunction earlier this week.
