The family of a California toddler is grieving after the child left the house with his mother recently, never to return. Unfortunately, the woman had given him a special present that she thought was “cute” — but her gift left her son dead and a family asking a lot of questions following the unthinkable tragedy.

According to Danielle Morin, she did extensive research on daycare providers in the Fontana area before finally deciding to enroll her young 18-month-old son, Deacon, with Marriott Family Childcare – one of two facilities belonging to an organization known as Little Impressions Daycare and Learning Center. Unfortunately, the last time she dropped her child off there, things wouldn’t go as they had so many times before, and her boy would never make it home again.

Danielle Morin and her son Deacon

You can imagine her shock to return to the daycare at about 5 p.m. only to find paramedics desperately trying to revive her small son. As it turns out, the entire ordeal actually stemmed from a “trendy” gift Danielle had given to her son some time before and the huge mistake the daycare made when putting him down for a nap.

According to daycare staff, they put Deacon to sleep with an amber teething necklace wrapped around his neck, and it eventually suffocated the boy. Of course, the mother and many others who have heard of the case have been left wondering, “How dumb do you have to be to leave something wrapped around a child’s neck when you put them down for a nap?”

Deacon

Emergency personnel did what they could, and Deacon was eventually rushed to the hospital in critical condition and placed on life support. Sadly, he didn’t recover. After deciding to take him off of life support, Danielle made the difficult decision to donate her son’s organs in order to save the lives of others.

Although her son has lost the battle for his life and passed away, Danielle says the fight is far from over. As any mother would, she wants the daycare shut down for good so that no other parent ever experiences this kind of grief at the hands of the irresponsible employees. Although Danielle hasn’t received any answers pertaining to the specifics of her son’s death, she believes there’s more to it than people are telling.

In fact, she has yet to learn which staff member performed CPR on her child – if anyone did at all. Further reports indicate that Little Impressions Daycare and Learning Center was cited numerous times in 2015 and placed on probation for three years.

A Go Fund Me page was originally started to raise funds for medical costs but has now also been designated to help pay for Deacon’s funeral, among other things. It has already received $35,000 of its $50,000 goal.

When it comes down to it, someone needs to go to jail for this. Accidents happen, but we all need to be held accountable when irresponsible behavior leads to the death of an innocent person, especially that of a child. After all, parents entrust the lives of their children to the staff when they drop them off to places like this, and they expect that they’ll come home at the end of the day.

No parent should ever have to lose their child. However, when it happens at the hands of someone else because of their neglect, that person needs to pay some kind of consequence. Add to this the common sense that you shouldn’t be putting a baby down to sleep with something wrapped around their neck, and I think any reasonable person can see the problem there.