Child Hospitalized After Eating Cocaine

A 2-year-old girl was in good condition Thursday after being rushed to a hospital from a day-care center in the throes of seizures apparently caused by ingesting cocaine, Los Angeles police said.

Investigators said Theresa Smalling suffered the seizures about an hour and a half after a relative dropped her off Wednesday morning at Thompson’s Learning Village, 1932 10th Ave.

“The child arrived at the day-care center at 8 a.m., and her seizures began at 9:30 a.m.” said Police Lt. Richard Iddings. “Our medical experts say it takes half an hour for the drug to take effect with a child this age.”

Although the sequence of events indicate that the child ingested the drug at the day-care center, Iddings emphasized that investigators have not determined where she obtained the cocaine.

‘Doesn’t Take Too Much’

“There are a million possibilities,” he said. “It could have been thrown onto the school grounds. She could have found it somewhere else. We don’t know where she got it, what the quantity was or what form it was in.”

Iddings said physicians at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center are trying to determine how much cocaine is in the child’s system, noting that with a child that age “it doesn’t take too much” to cause seizures. A woman who answered a phone call to the day-care center Thursday refused to identify herself but said the preschool remains open.