Poppy Bilderbeck
A mum has spoken out in outrage after discovering her toddler's leg was fractured at nursery but no one picked up on it.
Earlier this year, Sally* picked up her son Ben* from his nursery in Queensland, Australia at 3:20pm but immediately noticed something was wrong.
Instead of running towards her and grabbing his bag, her son - aged one year and nine months - was on his stomach on the floor, holding himself up with his hands and appeared 'freaked out'.
Advert
The 37-year-old immediately rushed over to her son to aid him, helping him up from where he was lying.
She tells Kidspot: "I picked him up and tried to stand him up, but he could only put one leg down.
"He was like a little flamingo, so I had to keep carrying him."
Sally questioned a number of staff at the daycare whether something had happened to Ben that day - having dropped him off at 6:30am.
However, she claims the first person didn't say anything out of the ordinary had occurred.
A different member of staff reportedly told the mum they'd noticed Ben hadn't been putting his right leg down, but resolved it was down to 'pins and needles' and so didn't look any further into it.
A third member of staff allegedly told the mum her nearly-two-year-old son had been sleeping 'a lot'.
Leaving the nursery no clearer on what had happened to Ben, Sally decided to take her son to hospital.
Sat in the hospital's accident and emergency department, the mum recalls how her son 'screaming so much' they had to 'take him outside at one point', which meant she 'wasn't surprised' when the results of a scan came back to show Ben had suffered a fracture to his right tibia.
While the fracture wasn't much of a shock given the state of her son when she showed up at the nursery and his screams of pain, Sally notes she was 'obviously upset' to learn the extent of his injury.
Once Ben was allowed to be taken home, Sally called the nursery while in the car to explain how 'furious' she was and to let them know she'd be making 'a formal complaint'.
The nursery has since responded by claiming Ben was examined by a member of staff but 'did not cry' when his leg was touched.
The nursery also alleges it called Sally to alert her of her son not feeling 100 percent, however, the mum denies this happened, noting she works 'across the road' so would've rushed straight there if she'd had a missed call while busy.
Sally said: "It makes me sick to my stomach when I think that he was moved from one area of the floor to another throughout the day for seven hours."
Sally has since taken Ben out of the nursery and reported the incident to the Department of Education. However, no action is reported as having been taken by the department.
Names changed for the purpose of the article