An SC one-year-old dies on his first day in day care. His family wants answers

Jul. 22—GREENVILLE, S.C. — His name was Zion.

He celebrated his first birthday barely a month ago. His sweet smile made the world feel like a better place.

Monday was his first day at Bumble Bee Daycare and Learning Center in Greenville, where his mother had just started working a few days earlier.

Shadavia Rosemond, his mother, was in the class for 2-year-olds next door. They arrived at around 6:15, and when Rosemond checked on him an hour later, he was sitting in a chair crying.

Rosemond has been in the child care business for seven years, and she knows it takes time for children to adjust but she didn't want Zion's first experience to be bad so she called her sister to pick him up.

An hour later Zion's teacher carried his limp body into Rosemond's room and handed him to her. His lips were purple. He had no pulse. Someone grabbed him and ran to the office, where a parent started CPR.

Emergency workers took over minutes later, quite literally trying to breathe life back into the child.

Zion Watkins died at 10 a.m. in the hospital.

The story going around — and one the family believes — is he choked on a mouthful of goldfish crackers.

What happened to Zion in that one hour is now the focus of the family and community activists, who say a child need not die from a cracker.

Where was the staff? How many adults were in the room with him? Did they not know CPR? How many staff members had CPR training? Why did they not act sooner?

"Why? Why? Why?" said Felicia Oliver, Zion's aunt, at a news conference Wednesday outside the day care center. Her voice rose louder and louder, more plaintive, with each word. The faint sounds of Zion's mother crying could be heard behind her.

Greenville County Coroner Kent Dill has not issued his report and he could not be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon.

The phone at the day care went unanswered Wednesday and no voice mail picked up.

The family said no one from the school has contacted them since Zion died.

Bumble Bee was started in Greenville by Nancy Abad in 2015, according to the S.C. Secretary of State Office. It has a capacity of 163 children and is open from 5 a.m. to 12 a.m. on weekdays, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturdays.

Abad previously started Bumble Bee Day Care in New York City in 2004, the school's website says. She described herself as a "stay-at-home mother of three with a passion for nurturing and caring for children."

Abad and her daughter Cinthia De León, listed on the Secretary of State website as co-director, expanded the business to Greenville.

In February, acting on a complaint, a Department of Social Services employee inspected the facility and found several items the department deemed severe concerns, among them were that no one on staff had CPR training, supervision was inadequate, the child-teacher ratio was high and there were strangulation, choking or suffocation hazards. The report does not say what the hazards were.

DSS returned in March and cleared the business of all violations.

Community activist Traci Fant, who is helping the family to get answers from the school and authorities, said the clearance is not proof that all was well at Bumble Bee.

In 2020, DSS found the ceiling, floors, window or doors were not free of hazards, staff files were not in compliance and pets lacked vaccinations. The inspection came after a complaint.

In 2019 at its annual inspection, DSS found furniture and equipment were not in good repair and the playground lacked adequate cushion material and fencing.

Fant said the family wants to see the video from inside the school and the coroner's evaluation about what caused Zion's death.

"Then we'll decide whether someone needs to be held accountable," she said.

But even without that information, Fant wonders why someone did not call Rosemond into Zion's classroom rather than moving him around.

"You never move the person," she said.

Dr. U.A. Thompson, a community activist who is a cousin of Zion's mother, said he believes the state should require that everyone who works in a day care — teachers to custodians — have CPR certification.

Day cares, he said, have high turnover and struggle to attract employees.

"They are hiring and pushing aside policies and not getting proper certification," he said.

Rosemond said when she was hired no one asked to see her CPR certification.

"The fact remains Zion's first day of day care should not have been his last day of living," Thompson said.

Fant said the family wanted to hold a press conference to put pressure on authorities to get answers.

When the group arrived across the street from Bumble Bee, police were called, Fant said. The family explained what they were doing and the police left.

At the news conference several family members held large photos of Zion. His mother said Zion was everything to her.

"A piece of me is gone. A piece of me is gone," Rosemond said.

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