An 18-month-old boy found wedged between a bed and a crib at an Aurora day-care home was clinging to life at a Denver hospital Thursday night.
The boy, identified by family as Zavion Brown, was on life support and undergoing neurological tests at Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center. Family members said, however, that early indications are he is brain-dead.
Aurora police are investigating the incident and the conditions in the day care at 1172 Havana St., said officer Marcus Dudley.
Dudley termed the incident an accident, but police are investigating to determine whether there was any neglect involved.
Police were called at 11:27 a.m., Dudley said. When they arrived at the small frame home, they found the boy wasn’t breathing. Firefighters administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but the boy didn’t respond, he said.
Dudley declined to release any names. He did say there were two adults and nine boys – ranging in age from 1 to 7 years old – in the home at the time.
The 61-year-old woman who operated the home day care was being visited by another woman, who found the boy wedged between the beds and not breathing, he said. The toddler hadn’t been seen for 15 to 25 minutes, Dudley said.
Ivette Bailey, the boy’s paternal grandmother, said she was “getting ready to take care of him” at her home. She said she had lost her husband and her mother in the past year and an aunt died this week, so she was already mired in grief.
“He was really a good baby. He didn’t give me no problems,” Bailey said. “I just loved him to death.”
The boy’s aunt, who declined to give her name, said the family called him “Tuka.”
Dudley said the home was a licensed day care. But state records show it was registered in Arapahoe County as a family child-care home, exempt from needing a license.
Mary McGee, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Human Services, said that such a classification doesn’t limit the number of children allowed, but they must be children of the caregiver, closely related to the caregiver, or all from one unrelated family.
The resident of the home was listed Addie Lee Perry, 61. Perry has a minor record. She received a year’s probation in Denver in 1991 for “wrongs to minors.”
The record doesn’t elaborate, but the municipal code defines the violation as, among other things, allowing the life, health or physical well-being of a minor to be endangered.
Staff writer Felisa Cordona contributed to this report.
Staff writer Jim Kirksey can be reached at 303-820-1448 or jkirksey@denverpost.com.
