A tragedy all around

The Wasilla Police Department announced this week it had completed its investigation into the death of Faith Phillips, the 19-month old who died Sept. 9 in a tragic playground accident at Illuminations Childcare and Educational Center in Wasilla.

The police and the local district attorney have concluded that no one was criminally negligent in the toddler’s death.

We applaud the police for doing such tough work. We can’t imagine how difficult it must be to go over those autopsy reports and examine that evidence. It’s hard enough just to write about tragic situations like these in a newsroom full of people with young children.

But while the police have reached a conclusion about the incident, we doubt it will provide comfort to anyone involved.

We can’t imagine that baby Faith’s parents, Brittany Phillips and her fiancé, Andrew Stokes, take much comfort in it. Theirs is a grief we can’t possibly imagine, one we hope we never have to experience.

And while the police department’s announcement was probably a relief to the owners and staff at Illuminations, we’re also confident in saying it doesn’t stop them wondering if they could have done anything different that would have spared baby Faith. We imagine staff members at the center have spent days and weeks endlessly reliving the events of that tragic day. We know that living with this death is a burden they will struggle to carry for their lifetimes.

Representatives of baby Faith’s family have said before that Faith’s mother has already started talking to state lawmakers about what can be changed in state statute to avoid any future similar tragedies.

There’s one that’s already been identified — more training of pediatric CPR for day-care staffers. Apparently, current law requires just one staff member trained in that life-saving technique. That may be adequate for a small day care that looks after just a few children, but perhaps specifying a ratio of one pediatric CPR-trained staffer per a certain number of children is in order.

We would applaud such a change. Indeed, we wonder why that’s not how the law reads currently.

Of course, the ending of the criminal investigation doesn’t close the door on any other legal remedies available to the family. There’s still the possibility of civil action. If they believe they’ve been wronged, we would not begrudge Faith’s parents seeking that redress. But we also know that no cash settlement will fill Faith’s tiny shoes or bring a modicum of comfort to those who love her.

There is healing work to do here. Rather than spend time assigning blame, we encourage the community to use Faith’s loss as a catalyst to work together to tighten the safety net of regulations that protects children while at day-care facilities.