KANSAS CITY — A child care center that was the scene of a bizarre accident has been boarded up. The owner says it’s not expected to re-open for at least a week.
One child remains hospitalized following the frightening crash at an east Kansas City day care. In all, three kids were hurt. The driver who caused the crash also suffered injuries.
It happened at Christian Academy day care near 27th and Monroe.
An injured child care worker told FOX 4 News she feels lucky to be alive. Della Colbert, 23, said she was standing right next to the now boarded-up wall of the child care center when a Cadillac came crashing into the building.
“Yesterday, when it all happened when I came home, I was kinda finding myself kinda spacing out,” Colbert said. “I barely could sleep. I tossed and turned, all night long because my left side hurt really bad.”
Police say an 79-year-old man driving a Range Rover crashed into the parked Cadillac on 27th Street and rammed the car through the wall of the day care.
Two children were pinned underneath the car and Colbert says the Cadillac plowed into her legs, throwing her back into the building. She says her left leg is badly sprained. She needs crutches to walk. But at the time, she hobbled around the center, helping young children get out of the building and giving them hugs to calm them down.
Colbert says the crash has taken a toll on her mentally and emotionally, and she’s not sure she’ll be able to return to the day care to work.
“I didn’t even want to close my eyes because I kept picturing myself getting tossed by the cars,” Colbert said. “It was just so hard to really sleep last night, it really was.”
This morning a sign posted on the front of the boarded-up building asks that people keep the center in their prayers as Christian Academy undergoes renovations.
FOX 4 News talked with the owner, Deena Washington. She declined our request for an on-camera interview but says she hopes to reopen the center in about a week.
Colbert tells FOX 4 News she’s anxious to see 5-year-old Zyaire Davis, the little boy who is still in the hospital. That was one the kids she cared for, and she says he has quite a spunky personality.
But Colbert says he may not be released from the hospital anytime soon because he suffered a fractured hip.
