A toddler was found floating in a church baptismal pool after he apparently drowned in just two feet of water while he was under the car of an unlicensed daycare.
The caretakers at Praise Fellowship Assembly of God in Indianapolis, Indiana, apparently didn’t realize Juan Cardenas, age one, was missing until a therapist arrived and couldn’t find the boy Wednesday, according to police.
Because the daycare operated in a church, it is considered a ‘registered ministry’ and is not required to have the same inspections or safety standards are daycare centers. Under Indiana law, workers aren’t even required to be licensed.
Wow, not just a pool, which are horribly dangerous to children (causing way more deaths than guns per year, but we never see the metric of “Pool Death”) but a Baptismal pool, which of course is a protected 1st Amendment item.
Of course there’s all sorts of talk about the lack of licensing at the facility, but do you think a piece of paper would have stopped a kid from wandering off and drowning?
Just a sad mess, but not a “Gun Death”. Does that seem relevant to you?
h/t Bob
Shocking story.
It’s got my mind ticking, though…
Some churches keep a full baptismal tank integrated into the rear of the stage. Others have a tank that is mobile, and moved into place (and filled) for a baptismal service. Not all built-in tanks need to be kept full, but the process of filling and emptying can be troublesome…
The smart church leaders control access to a full baptismal tank by locked doors. But if it’s integrated into the stage, anyone with access to the auditorium can get into the tank…but wandering kids ought to be kept out by the adult-waist-height wall that is usually put up in front of the baptismal tank.
Some churches run day-care centers. It’s a great way for the church to help the working parents in the congregation. With respect to wandering kids, those churches would be smart to separate the kids from the main auditorium anyway.
Locked doors between the day-care area and the baptismal would have helped in this case. But the staff at the day-care center wasn’t tracking the kids, even informally doing a head-count every fifteen minutes…
What if the kid had gotten into the janitor’s closet and chugged a bottle of drain-cleaner? What if he had grabbed a couple screwdrivers from the janitor’s tool-box and stuck them into an electrical outlet? Both of those problems aren’t church-specific in the way that a baptismal tank is, and both are fixed by keeping an eye on the kid, followed by controlling access to certain areas.
Licensure might make the church members more careful about those things, but it won’t guarantee that the facility would be safe for kids.