For working parents, finding suitable daycare for their children can be a tricky task to accomplish.
You'll be sending your kids to be supervised by caretakers for eight hours a day, and you can only hope whatever location you chose is a good fit for all parties involved.
While most moms and dads have no complaints or qualms about their child's daycare, it's not always the case, and the repercussions can end up being a parent's worst nightmare.
Sadly, this terrifying situation is exactly what happened to a mother after her four-year-old daughter came home from daycare.
"This can't be what I'm thinking it is, because how could that be in a preschool?"
Sabrina Straker got the scare of her life on October 5, after her daughter Serenity returned from Little Inventors Day Care in Bronx, New York with capsules of illicit drugs in her hand.
Straker told ABC 6 that Serenity told her a classmate gave her "his teeth," but when she looked at vials, she immediately knew something was amiss.
"Inside was something small and white, which she described as a tooth - looked like rocks, or pebbles. Then I was curious," Straker said.
"She comes back, 'well Mommy, I have a lot of his teeth,' so then I have a third capsule. This can't be what I'm thinking it is, because how could that be in a preschool?"
Straker brought the substance to the 46th Precinct, where authorities confirmed the capsules contained crack cocaine.
"Low and behold whatever this test kit is, it was blue and he said, 'this is what it is. That's what that means. This is crack cocaine.' I said 'What? Come again? No, I didn't just hear that,'" she told the news outlet.
"Had my daughter ingested the capsule and not spit it out, I would be planning a funeral."
However, Straker's shock turned into horror when she realized her daughter had put one of the capsules in her mouth.
Once Straker learned Serenity had tasted one of the "teeth" she rushed her to the hospital, where she tested positive for crack cocaine.
"She couldn't sit down, she was beyond bouncy, very loquacious, just all over the place, literally, talking to herself, looking in the mirror, saying she sees three of herself. Once they did the urine test it came back positive that she had cocaine in her system."
"Had my daughter ingested the capsule and not spit it out, I would be planning a funeral."
"No one was watching the children."
While a frightening incident, the daycare alleges the drugs came in through an outside source.
"Whatever it was we think the person threw it over the fence to get rid of it," Yvette Joseph, director of Little Inventors Day Care said. "We checked our center thoroughly, and all the children are safe."
But despite their response, Straker said she wants the daycare to be shut down, as they weren't watching the children.
"No one was watching the children. There are 15 kids in the room with two teachers and two aides "” where were they when this was going on? she told PIX 11.
Police are investigating the incident as a case of child endangerment, and are looking into all potential suspects, including the family of the child who gave the vials of crack cocaine to Serenity.
