By Benjamin A. Klopman, Attorney and David Wolf, Attorney
Published by Child Injury Lawyer Network
Karl Marshall Walker, Jr., a 38-year-old teacher’s aide, was found guilty of sexually abusing a third-grade student at Bryant Woods Elementary School. Walker’s conviction sets precedent in the state of Maryland for a sex crime conviction without evidence of inappropriate physical contact. Walker worked at the school for over three years. During that time he wrote dozens of love letters to the 8-year-old girl upon which he was convicted. These letters contained Walker’s desire to kiss the girl and requests that she kept the correspondences between them secret.
A Pittsford, New York day care center is being investigated after a child came home with a fractured skull. To this day, parents still do not know how the incident happened. After the incident, a local news team learned that the day care center, Storybrook Child Care, was cited for serious violations. In May, the little boy was sent home with a head injury and the day care did not report or document the incident. The boy’s parents discovered the injury by giving him a kiss on the head one day. After stumbling upon their son’s injury, the parents immediately rushed their child to the hospital; the infant’s head had begun to swell and he was diagnosed with a skull fracture.
Lexus Campbell, a two-year-old girl recently died at an unlicensed day care in Bertram, Texas. According to a police report, the police responded to a call around 2:45 p.m. stating that a child had fallen from a bed and was unresponsive. The toddler was taken to Dell Children’s Medical Center, in Austin, Texas, where she was pronounced dead.
A Texas day care center bus crashed into a Ford Excursion on Thursday, September 23. Witnesses at the scene told officers the driver of the bus failed to yield the right of way to the Excursion. The bus was carrying 7 children, a day care teacher and the bus driver. All 7 children and the day care teacher were taken to Metroplex Hospital. Thereafter, one four-year-old female was transferred to Scott & White Memorial Hospital reportedly in serious condition due to a head injury. The bus driver was transported to the Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood. The driver of the Excursion was not transported from the scene. Police are still continuing to investigate the accident. If you would like to read more on this story please see 
Recently, a new interactive Web tool has been designed to aid those families that live on farms in obtaining information on what to consider when designing or constructing a play area for their children on the farm. The guide highlights key elements of injury prevention such as fencing, ground cover, supervision and proper distancing between play structures. If you would like to visit this interactive guide please see 
A 19-year-old Milford teenage boy who worked as a day care worker was arrested on September 10 for allegedly downloading child pornography onto his computer. According to a spokesman wit the Department of Justice, Pennsylvania authorities contacted Milford police as well as agents with the Delaware Child Predator Task Force when authorities linked some pornographic images to a Delaware computer. After being notified, local police went to the teenager’s home and found numerous files of child sexual exploitation.
A former day care worker in Cincinnati, Ohio has been convicted for drugging toddlers to get them to fall asleep. Donna Scott, 42, was charged with three counts of endangering children. Scott and her boss were arrested in March 2009 for giving at least four children at the day care facility the natural supplement and sleep aid melatonin. According to the charges, Scott laced the children’s candy and baby formula with melatonin to get the children to fall asleep faster. These children were given the supplement for over a six-month time frame.
Jordan Braden Casey, 19, is facing two Texas criminal indictments, each charging him with aggravated sexual assault of a child. The 19-year-old man use to be an employee at Covenant Child Development Center, a child care program for Covenant employees. Covenant says he worked there for 14 weeks, from February 2009 to June 2009. According to police reports, the indictments appear to arise from allegations of sexual assault against two different boys occurring sometime between 2008 and 2010.
According to local officials Jackie Bennett, a 57-year-old teacher, was suspended with pay after being accused of breaking the arm of a 5-year-old student. According to Bennett, the incident occurred while he was attempting a “therapeutic hold” – a technique used to restrain a student to prevent that student from causing to himself or herself and others. Theresa Perry, a spokeswoman for the Cumberland County, North Carolina school system, stated schoold regulations permit teachers to physically restrain students where safety of the students, school employees or volunteers are in jeopardy.
New research, conducted by researchers with the Center for Injury Research and Police at Nationwide’s Children Hospital, suggested a dramatic increase in the number of youth athletes in the US who have sustained basketball-related traumatic brain injuries. For example, Nationwide’s Children Hospital reported a 70% increase between 1997 and 2007 in children who were treated in the emergency room for brain injuries that occurred while playing basketball.