One week after the death of the kindergartener, multiple mistakes overlap Investigate whether safety management was neglected

It has been a week since the 12th day after a 3-year-old girl died of heatstroke after being left in a school bus at a certified children's center in Makinohara City, Shizuoka Prefecture.

So far, it has become clear that multiple mistakes have been made, such as the president who was driving the bus not checking the inside of the car when the children got off, and the police believe that safety management was neglected. An investigation is underway on suspicion of professional negligence resulting in death.

At Kawasaki Kindergarten, a certified children's center in Shizunami, Makinohara City, on the 5th of this month, Senna Kawamoto (3) was left in the car of the school bus stopped in the parking lot for about 5 hours and died of heatstroke.

According to police investigations and explanations by the children's center, the president who was driving the bus at the time did not check the inside of the car when the children got off the bus, and the class teacher was China-chan. It is clear that multiple mistakes were made, such as thinking that they were absent even though they were not in the classroom and not contacting their parents.

The police believe that the children's garden neglected safety management, and are investigating the suspicion of professional negligence resulting in death by listening to the director and the staff who corresponded at the time.

In addition, the prefecture and Makinohara City have been conducting a special audit of the children's center since the 9th of this month in order to find out what kind of problems occurred in safety management, and will decide whether to make recommendations for improvement over the next month or so. It is a policy to

3-year-old girl died

From the contents explained at the press conference by the certified child center "Kawasaki Kindergarten", we have summarized the circumstances leading up to this incident.

On the morning of the 5th of this month, one of the three commuter bus drivers at the children's center was unable to pick up and drop off due to errands, so Chairman Ritsuyoshi Masuda (73) hurriedly decided to drive the bus. rice field.

A woman in her 70s also got on the bus and left the park at 8:00 am.

At 8:43 am, after picking up the five children, I put Senna Kawamoto on the bus in front of her house.

The bus arrived at the park at 8:48 am.

The attendant took the 2-year-old child by the hand and got him off the bus.

Then, without checking the number of people who actually got off, the tablet terminal application that was used to check attendance etc. was used to register China-chan together with other children as "attended kindergarten".

Furthermore, the chairman who was driving the bus did not check whether there were any children left in the car or disinfect the seats, which the driver usually did.

The bus was parked and locked in an open parking lot about 200 meters away from the nursery school, even though China was still inside the bus.

On the other hand, the tablet terminal application was designed to allow attendance registration until 9:00 a.m., so the kindergarten was supposed to check the attendance information of the children on the screen after 9:00 a.m., but on this day, China-chan's class The deputy teacher said that he checked the screen around 8:55 am just before the data was registered by the crew.

At that time, China's attendance information was "not entered", but the assistant teacher decided that she was absent or late, and did not check the screen again after 9 o'clock.

For this reason, he did not know that China-chan was "attended" on the system, and did not notice the incident.

And the homeroom teacher of the class that received the report from the sub-homeroom teacher did not ask the parents whether the child was absent.

It was around 2:10 p.m., about five hours after the bus arrived at the park.

When the bus driver moved the bus that was parked in the parking lot to the front of the nursery school to pick her up on the way home, he found China-chan lying down in the car.

Around 2:20 p.m., an ambulance team arrived at the scene after receiving a report from the park.

According to the fire department, China was not breathing and her body was hotter than usual when she was transported.

About an hour after she was transported, China was confirmed dead at a hospital in the city at 3:30 pm.

Police said the cause of her death was heatstroke.

4 Mistakes Overlapping, Insufficient Countermeasures

At a press conference held on the 7th of this month, the certified children's center "Kawasaki Kindergarten" explained that four mistakes overlapped as the cause of this incident.

▽The first is that when getting off the bus, there was no rule to check the list of children who got on and the children who actually got off.

▽ The second is that there was no rule for multiple staff members to double-check whether there were any children left behind on the bus.

At Kodomoen, it is said that the driver usually checked the inside of the car, but Chairman Masuda, who had to drive in a hurry on the day of the incident, neglected to check.

Chairman Masuda explained, "It was my second time driving the bus this year, and I was unfamiliar with it. I had plans after the pick-up and drop-off, and I was impatient because I didn't have time to spare."

▽ The third is that the assistant teacher of the class was looking at the screen of the app used to check attendance earlier than the stipulated time of 9:00 am.

For this reason, even though China was supposed to be attending kindergarten on the system, she couldn't notice that she was invisible.

▽Fourth, even though China-chan was not in her classroom, the class teacher thought she was absent and did not contact her parents.

Regarding this, Deputy Director Tomoko Sugimoto said, "From July to August, due to the new coronavirus, we continued to take breaks and refrain from going to kindergarten. There were repeated times when there was no absence notice, so I neglected to contact the parents."

Furthermore, at the press conference, it was revealed that measures were inadequate in response to the incident in which a 5-year-old child was left behind in a shuttle bus at a nursery school in Fukuoka Prefecture in July last year and died.

In the month following this incident, the government issued a notice to children's centers nationwide, requesting that they double-check the number of people attending the school and review the crisis management manual. The kindergarten did not review the manual.