A toddler is safe Tuesday night after he wandered away from his child care center and into oncoming traffic in Greenville.
According to Paris Peppers, the toddler's grandmother who lives in Raleigh, her daughter got a phone call from KinderCare on Stantonsburg Road in Greenville saying there was an "incident" – her son Marley had wandered off the playground.
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Peppera said the daycare didn’t expand any further, and the boy’s family said they only learned the whole story when someone shared photos on social media of the child standing in the road.
“My daughter, my other daughter, contacted her sister and said, ‘look at this photo,’ and sent her the picture,” Peppers said. “It was a picture of a child in the middle of the street.”
Strangers found Marley on the road and took him to a local business to see if he needed help.
“He’s been [at] LabCorp. He’s in the arms of a good stranger, and they are oblivious,” Peppers said.
KinderCare released a statement to WRAL News, reading in part, “While we are thankful the child was not hurt, this incident should not have happened. We have several safety protocols that should have prevented this situation. Unfortunately, those policies were not followed.”
Peppers told WRAL News that she and her family are thankful to the Good Samaritan who returned Marley safely and the passerby who documented the incident.
“I have a sneaky suspicion that if this wasn’t captured by that witness that KinderCare, that staff at that location, not KinderCare in general, would have continued to sweep it under the rug as a minor incident,” Peppers said. “And this is major.”
Peppers is also a lawyer and said the family is meeting with KinderCare management to discuss the next steps.