An infant who died in January at a Hastings home day care had been placed face down on a blanket on a carpeted floor after the provider couldn't get him to fall asleep in a crib, according to a state investigation released Thursday.
The provider, Ann Quigley, had her child-care license revoked because the incident was a clear deviation from safe-sleep policies in Minnesota and because she then left the baby unsupervised in that position for 10 to 15 minutes, the report said.
The Star Tribune reported the death and one other that occurred in licensed child care this year, but the report by the state Department of Human Services offers new details. After discovering the unresponsive baby, Quigley attempted CPR and called 911. She then gave authorities "conflicting information" about whether the baby had been placed in a crib, the report said. When law enforcement and social services personnel in Dakota County tried to reach her to clear up that question, she did respond.
The circumstances of the death echo findings of a Star Tribune 2012 investigative series on deaths in Minnesota child-care facilities. The investigation found that inadequate supervision and safe-sleep violations were common threads in the rising number of deaths in the state — almost all of which occurred in licensed day-care homes.
Child-care deaths, which had been running nearly one per month from 2007 to 2011, fell sharply late last year after state regulators drew new attention to the hazards, but two deaths so far this year suggest that basic rule violations continue to occur in Minnesota home day cares.
Jeremy Olson • 612-673-7744
