Police are investigating the suspected pepper-spraying of a playground structure that left preschoolers at a North Burnaby daycare with stinging, burning hands and faces Thursday morning.
Staff at the Puddle Splashers Daycare on Frances Street did a daily safety check of the playground before taking the kids out at about 11 a.m., director Shawna Harrison told the NOW.
About 10 minutes later, however, she said several children who had gone to play on a large wooden climbing structure all started coughing and saying their hands and faces were burning.
Three staff members who went over to attend to them also started experiencing symptoms, Harrison said.
The staff rushed the kids inside, changed their clothes and applied cold compresses to their hands and faces, according to Harrison.
Not knowing what substance the kids and staff members had been exposed to, the daycare called poison control and reached out to the school district for help, she said.
Harrison said she suspected someone had pepper-sprayed the structure, and poison control agreed based on her description of the symptoms.
Some of the children had to be sent home.
“They were really upset because they were burning,” Harrison said.
She reported the incident to police, and an officer was in the neighbourhood investigating Thursday afternoon.
“I’m incredibly angry,” Harrison said. “Who would do this? These children are three and four years old?”
The playground equipment is owned and operated by Puddle Splashers but located on school district property leased by the daycare.
Harrison said the district had someone at the site “in minutes” to wash down the structure, which is now wrapped in caution tape and will be off limits until at least Monday.
“When the childcare provider contacted us to tell us what happened, our first concern was for the children,” school district secretary-treasurer Russell Horswill said in an emailed statement.
A parent who spoke to the NOW but did not want her name used said she was “very happy” with how the daycare dealt with the situation despite her child being “one of the kids who had one of the more harsh reactions.”
She commended the actions of the staff.
“Even while dealing with reactions themselves, staff did their best to minimize exposure to the children,” she said.
Pepper spray is suspected but has not been confirmed as the source of the symptoms, according to Harrison.
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