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Family says part of daughter's finger severed at Oak Harbor daycare

The family believes they haven't gotten the complete story behind what happened to their daughter at Children's Academy 2 in Oak Harbor.
Erin Kays believes they haven't gotten the complete story behind what happened to their daughter at Children's Academy 2 in Oak Harbor. (Photo: KING)

An Oak Harbor family says they plan to file a lawsuit against a daycare they consider unsafe. They say a rocking chair incident cause their daughter to lose part of her finger.

"We really want to know more than anything what happened to our daughter," said Erin Kays.

Kays believes she hasn't gotten the complete story behind what happened to her daughter when she was at daycare Thursday at Children's Academy 2 in Oak Harbor.

"We got the call that there was an accident at the daycare that involved a rocking chair and that part of her finger was off," said Kays.

Kays says she rushed to the daycare and her daughter's finger was wrapped in gauze. She was told about what happened and provided a report stating that her daughter fell off a rocking chair.

"They asked her to get off the chair to sit down. She's not even two. You can't politely ask a 2-year-old to get off...and her injury didn't quite add up when she fell forward," she said.

Kays says she took her daughter to the emergency room, and this is what the doctor told her

"That it didn't cut through any bone, but pretty much all the skin and tissue on the top and including the entire nail and back of the finger just got ripped off. And enough of the nail bed is left and it should grow back and be completely normal," said Kays.

Kays says she filed a report with Child Protective Services and plans to file a police report

The director of the daycare, Jan Alger, told KING 5: "Any daycare has accidents. We did everything we were supposed to do, and we were not negligent."

A quick check on the Washington state Department of Early Learnings website cites five complaints against the child care facility, the first dating back to 2012.

For the Kays family, they say they want to speak out, so other families know what happened to their child.

"For the most part all of the teachers there are amazing, and so it was really hard for me to believe that they would let back stuff happen," said Kays. "Kids will be kids. Bad stuff can happen. Sometimes kids are clumsy, but after this incident, I couldn't let it slide."

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