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Child left in day care van hospitalized

By wire services
Published June 9, 2005

OCALA - A 3-year-old boy was hospitalized in critical condition Wednesday after being left alone for more than three hours in a day care center van.

The child was airlifted to Shands hospital in Gainesville. "We are hopeful he's going to improve," said police Sgt. Russ Kern.

Police are investigating the incident at Oakcrest Early Education Center.

Kern said the child, whose name was withheld, returned to the center from a field trip to a pizza parlor around 1:15 p.m. Tuesday in one of two vans with 27 other children. The four escorts apparently thought the others had done a head count before leading the children into the center, Kern said.

A man who was about to clean the vans noticed the child in a front seat about 4:20 p.m. and carried him into the building. Paramedics were called and found him unconscious and suffering seizures.

"We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn't happen again," day care owner Joann Jones said.

TALLAHASSEE - Gov. Jeb Bush on Wednesday suspended Kissimmee Mayor George Gant, who is facing charges of sexual battery.

Gant, 72, a retired family practice doctor and former medical director of the Osceola County Health Department, is accused of touching female patients improperly during gynecological exams.

"I'm not judging," Bush said. "But I think it's appropriate when a public official has been accused of a felony by a prosecutor that it's time for them to step aside until that's sorted out."

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement completed a yearlong criminal investigation of Gant in April.

Gant denied wrongdoing but resigned his job of more than two decades with the Health Department in August. He was re-elected mayor in November.

TALLAHASSEE - More than 7,100 of the roughly 170,000 people who died in Florida last year had one or more narcotics or alcohol in their system, with alcohol, tranquilizers and cocaine the most common, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Wednesday.

Of the drugs found in people who died, not all were found to be the cause of death. Cocaine was found to have caused the most deaths, followed by methadone; tranquilizers, such as Valium or Xanax; and the high-strength painkiller oxycodone.

Heroin use may be going down, if its presence in bodies is an indication. But the drug was blamed as the cause of death in more than 80 percent of the cases in which it was found in the body.

JACKSONVILLE - The Duval County School Board has voted unanimously to end a decades-old policy of paddling students who misbehave.

Before casting her vote Tuesday night, board member Kris Barnes said she never understood the use of spanking. "I have a very hard time understanding why we believe it makes sense that when children are caught fighting then they are hit," she said.

The end to corporal punishment was approved along with other changes in the student code of conduct.

According to the state, 42 of the state's 67 school districts still allow spanking.

[Last modified June 9, 2005, 01:16:07]