3-year-old found with broken arm after visit to Dothan daycare

DOTHAN, Ala ( WDHN ) — Questions are racing through a Dothan mom’s mind about what could have happened to her daughter after she alleges her 3-year-old had a broken arm after picking her up from a Dothan daycare.

According to her mother, 3-year-old Xylah usually raises her arms in the air, hoping to be embraced when she’s picked up from daycare. But on Tuesday, she said something was very different.

“When I picked my daughter up, she was just laying her head on my leg and whining.” Dothan native Sharazzi Huguley said in an exclusive interview with WDHN.

Huguly says she’s been taking Xylah to the Dothan Christian Development Center for about three weeks. This Tuesday, October 1, when Huguley picked up her child from the daycare, She said Xylah, who is non-verbal, was not her usual self.

“She’s kind of holding herself and crutching her arm as if something hurt,”

Huguley says she asked twice if something happened, and the teacher twice told her no. She claims the daycare never contacted her about any accident or incident involving her daughter that day.

After a short drive home, Huguley says she noticed the child’s right arm looked injured.

“I get her arm lifted, and immediately, when I lift it up, I see that it’s swollen and there’s a dent,” Huguly said.

She took her to Flowers Hospital, where they found Xylah’s arm was broken in two different places.

Huguley showed WDHN the doctor’s report, which read, in part,”an unaccidental injury cannot be ruled out.” But it did not rule out an accident either.

After asking for a comment from the daycare center, the owner, Keith Alford, told reporters the girl fell on the playground, but she didn’t show any signs of injury and acted normally, going three hours without crying.

“That’s not a fall from her playing around; something more forceful is what caused her to break her arm into two places,” Huguley said.

Xylah was then taken to UAB Children’s Hospital, where they put her arm in a cast.

They have to go back to UAB in two weeks and will find out if the girl needs additional treatment.

Huguley did file a police report with the Dothan Police Department, and they are investigating.

She says she put Xylah in daycare, hoping it would help her daughter with her speech problems and allow her to attend nursing school.

But now she’s making other plans, saying: “I’ll just have to figure it out; lean on family and friends when it comes to child care because she will not be going back to daycare.”

Hughley says she’s not accusing anyone of anything, but she wants to know what happened that day at daycare and why nobody notified her before she picked up her daughter.

“I dropped my child off, and she was fine, and when I picked her up, her arm was broken. It happened in their care.”

The owner of Dothan Christian Development Center, Keith Alford, says he’s been investigating.

Alford says the girl fell on the playground at about 2:45 p.m. and whined for a moment, but a teacher checked her over for injuries.

He says two other teachers also didn’t notice anything wrong with her.

In a statement, Alford wrote: “We can not and would not state in good conscience, that her injury did not occur when she fell. We can say that she was properly checked on and showed no signs of injury for the remainder of the day.”

That was before her mother picked her up, and doctors found her arm was broken in two different places.

Stay with WDHN for any new developments in the case.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRG News 5.