MONTREAL – It was nearly a month ago that a car crashed into a Laval daycare, leaving three children seriously injured and an entire community shaken.
Nearly all of the 30 children were welcomed back to the Face a Face Garderie this week, but not before daycare owners introduced some new safety measures.
Christina Strigas spent much of the last month picking up the pieces and rebuilding her daycare centre, but the memories of the accident still haunt her.
“It’s quite something that crash,” Strigas told Global News. “Now we’re jumpy and many staff members are still dealing with nightmares.”
READ MORE: 3 children sent to hospital after car crashes through Laval daycare window
One employee cannot stop picturing the horrific images from the day.
“Sometimes I say I’m going to forget everything but the things coming back all the time,” Lucie Van Wassenhoven described.
“When I saw the kids on the floor under the car and tried to pull out of kids.”
The accident happened when an 81-year-old woman crashed her car through the daycare’s front window.
She will not face criminal charges.
READ MORE: Police finally speak to driver in Laval daycare car crash
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Strigas would have liked an apology, but instead she’s trying to focus on the positive and most importantly safety.
The daycare has installed metal posts where the cars are parked.
“We put the posts up so the parents can rest assured, it will never happen again,” she said.
“And for out peace of mind as educators.”
The three-year-old girl who was trapped under the car after the accident spent two weeks in hospital.
For the first 36 hours, her parents didn’t know if she would make it.
The good news is that she was released last week just in time to celebrate her fourth birthday at home.
“It’s going to be slow to recuperate from the fractures behind her eyes and her face,” said Strigas.
There was a similar close call at a daycare in Riviere-des-Prairies earlier this year.
Like Strigas, the owner at Garderie le Ponceau is still counting his blessings that children were out of the room when a car slammed through the daycare’s store front windows.
“Thank god, a minute before hand it was story time we had eight kids in that classroom that would have probably lost their lives,” Rodney Ruben told Global News.
He is convinced that certain safety measures, like metal posts, should be mandatory for all daycares with store front windows.
“I think it should be obligatory.”
Back in Laval, the children have been staying at a neighbouring daycare centre during renovations.
They are expected back on Monday, just in time for the holidays.
To welcome the children, Strigas has created a wall of inspiring messages and drawings sent by other daycares to make the new space as positive as possible.
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