MEMPHIS, Tenn. —A mother says a bus sat in a daycare parking lot for hours with the windows and doors shut. But nobody realized 7-year-old Kaydence Holloway was inside.
Kandis Leake dropped her daughter off at New Sardis Baptist Church’s daycare center on Monday morning. The 7-year-old then got on a daycare bus that headed to her school around 8:45 and fell asleep.
She wasn’t found until six hours later.
“It’s outrageous really,” Leake said. “It’s very difficult. Very difficult.”
Pastor Darell Harrington says the driver missed Holloway and drove back to the daycare with the child still on board.
He says another driver found her just before 3 p.m.
“We’ve been alive and doing well in our child care center. This is the first type of occurrence of this nature,” Pastor Harrington said.
Leake figured out something was wrong when her daughter didn’t come home on the school bus.
“I went into a panic state.”
She says her daughter opened a window and jumped out of the daycare bus.
Either way, the child is thankfully okay. Largely because it wasn’t hot yesterday.
“Like I had a sleepless night last night, because it could have been worse,” Leake said.
Pastor Harrington says the driver was fired and the daycare’s director was put on administrative leave.
He also apologized to Leake.
But it’s a little too late. She’s not using the daycare again. Leake says she filed a report with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office.
