The District Prosecutor’s Office in Lubin filed an indictment on May 28, 2025, against two employees of one of Lubin’s kindergartens: a 43-year-old teaching assistant and a 27-year-old teacher. Both will face charges of exposing a four-year-old child to the direct danger of loss of life or serious injury at the end of August last year.

– As established, among other things, on the basis of surveillance footage, the injured boy, who was playing with other children, bent down by the playground fence at 3:10 p.m., put his hand through the mesh and took a blister pack of a psychoactive drug lying outside. Then, until 3:16 p.m., from time to time—at least four times—he pressed tablets out of the blister pack he was holding and put them in his mouth—explains Liliana Łukasiewicz, press spokesperson for the District Prosecutor’s Office in Legnica.

At 3:17 p.m., he crouched by the fence and placed the blister pack on the ground next to it. He walked away, but returned a moment later and pushed the blister pack outside, beyond the fence.

At 3:35 p.m., a group of children sat by the fence, where the boy had thrown the blister pack. The spokesperson said: – One of the girls reached her hand outside the fence and grabbed the blister pack. She looked at it and then handed it to another boy. For the next few minutes, the children looked at the tablets, and pressed at least one out of the blister pack. The defendants caring for the children noticed none of these events.

At 3:39 p.m., the 43-year-old noticed that three children were playing with the blister pack. She got up from the swing where she had been sitting, approached the children and took it from them. Liliana Łukasiewicz:

She asked the girl and the two boys accompanying her—among whom the injured boy was not present—whether any of them had eaten the tablets. She received a negative answer. The caregiver threw the blister pack into a rubbish bin inside the facility. After a few minutes, she returned outside. She did not ask the other children whether any of them had eaten the tablets.

At 3:44 p.m., the injured boy’s mother arrived. She approached her son, who was sitting on a bench and was already developing symptoms related to taking the drug. The boy was sleepy and tired and began to stagger.

The woman asked the caregivers whether her son had fallen somewhere, hit himself, or eaten any berries or plants growing near the kindergarten, because he was a child who put many things in his mouth. The defendants denied this.

Seeing the four-year-old’s deteriorating condition, his mother and the kindergarten employees called an ambulance. After carrying out medical procedures at the scene, the emergency team took the child to the RCZ hospital in Lubin.

Upon admission to hospital, the child’s condition was described as serious. The spokesperson said:

The boy was unresponsive, woke in response to painful stimuli and had slurred speech. His mother did not know that he had taken the drug and therefore could not provide the medical staff with any information that might have helped determine the cause of such a sudden deterioration in his health. In an attempt to determine the cause of the minor’s condition, laboratory tests were performed, including drug tests, as well as a head CT scan. The results did not deviate from normal, and the cause of the four-year-old’s collapse remained unknown.

In the afternoon, at the mother’s request, other kindergarten employees reviewed footage from the surveillance system installed on the premises. This revealed that the boy had found a blister pack and eaten something. While reviewing the recording, a security guard employed at the kindergarten found the blister pack with tablets in a rubbish bin on the premises. Only after 7 p.m. did a kindergarten employee take a photo of the drug and send it to the boy’s mother, who notified the doctors.

Because the RCZ in Lubin lacked the diagnostic capabilities necessary to confirm suspected poisoning with the identified drug, its staff decided to transport the boy by an air ambulance helicopter to the Regional Specialist Hospital in Wrocław, where he was admitted to the pediatric anesthesiology ward. The child’s condition upon admission was serious.

Investigators:

Because of impaired consciousness, the child was intubated and therapeutic fluid therapy was initiated. The medical and diagnostic procedures confirmed that the boy had been poisoned by the identified neuroleptic. On August 30, 2024, after the symptoms subsided, the minor was transferred to a pediatric ward in good general condition. After a three-day stay in that ward, he was discharged home.

What did the expert find?

The court-appointed forensic medicine expert stated that, as a result of the incident on August 28, 2024, the minor was found to be in a state following the ingestion of a psychoactive drug of an identified name, resulting in impaired consciousness and signs of respiratory failure. Ingestion of the drug caused progressively worsening symptoms of impaired consciousness, leading to emergency and medical measures including intubation, assisted ventilation to counter respiratory failure, and therapeutic fluid therapy.

This clinical condition constituted an illness that posed a real threat to the boy’s life, within the meaning of Article 156 § 1 point 2 of the Criminal Code.

Investigators: – Earlier notification of medical personnel about the drug ingestion could have accelerated the initiation of emergency measures, including gastric lavage and fluid therapy.

The minor’s ingestion of the drug in question did not cause organ damage, but it led to a health disorder lasting several hours. The substance contained in the drug has an antimanic effect. The drug is used to treat schizophrenia and relapses of manic illness. It should not be used in children or adolescents under 18.

Charges

– In view of the above circumstances, charges were brought against both defendants in March this year, and the indictment has now been filed—L. Łukasiewicz reports. – The prosecutor concluded that, in this case, there is no doubt that at the relevant time the defendants were responsible for caring for the minor who was then in the kindergarten, as well as the other children with whom they were on the fenced playground belonging to the kindergarten. They were therefore obliged to observe the children, watch over them and respond to behavior that, in their assessment, could expose them to any danger. However, this supervision was not properly carried out. Neither defendant noticed the four-year-old crouching by the fence for several dozen seconds and taking the tablets lying outside it, nor did they notice him pressing tablets out of the blister pack and putting them in his mouth at least four times over the next several minutes. They also did not notice him throw the blister pack beyond the fence several minutes later, or another child pick it up and take it after a further dozen or so minutes. It was only at 3:39 p.m. that one of them—the teaching assistant—took the blister pack away from the children.

And she emphasizes:

Despite this, the caregiver did not make sure that none of the other children under her care had taken the tablets, and neither she nor the teacher informed the boy’s mother or the ambulance crew who arrived at the scene that they had taken the tablets away from the children. They did not do so even though they saw the four-year-old’s health deteriorating very rapidly. In assessing the conduct of both defendants at the relevant time, the prosecutor was particularly critical of their failure to inform the minor’s mother, and subsequently the ambulance crew at the scene, that they had taken away a partially used blister pack of medication from the children and suspected that the boy had taken it.

The absence of this information resulted in medical personnel undertaking unnecessary and time-consuming procedures and tests to determine the cause of the boy’s sudden deterioration, exposing him to a direct threat to his life and health.

Prosecutor’s Office:

The above failure undoubtedly also resulted in the unintentional infliction on the minor of serious injury in the form of an illness that posed a real threat to his life within the meaning of Article 156 § 1 point 2 of the Criminal Code. Providing this information would undoubtedly have contributed to the rapid initiation of appropriate treatment for the minor, including gastric lavage and earlier administration of therapeutic fluid therapy.

During the proceedings, the defendants were questioned but did not admit to committing the alleged offense and refused to provide explanations.

They face between three months and five years in prison for the alleged offense.

The case will be heard by the District Court in Lubin.