Girl, 2 1/2, Hospitalized After Eating Cocaine; Clues, Suspects Sought

A 2 1/2-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.” Police Lt. Richard Iddings said. “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.

“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.

“Of course we are,” she said. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

She said school officials “are very concerned about this,” adding that police had told members of the staff not to comment on the incident.

Detective L. J. Jones said he could not definitely say whether officers had told the school’s staff not to comment, but he said he was doubtful that they had.

“That’s not our policy,” he said.

Officer John Del Vecchio said, “The little girl lives in the Wilshire area with her mother, who was separated from the child’s father about three weeks ago.

“The mother asked her sister to drive the child to the day care center, and the sister dropped her off.”

Del Vecchio said that a short time later, the child’s father dropped by the day-care center for a visit, noting later that his daughter seemed “very excited.”

“The father leaves, but he gets a call about an hour later that the child is having seizures,” Del Vecchio said. “A rescue ambulance is called, and they take her to the hospital.”

Although they released the child’s name, investigators refused to identify her parents or the relative who drove the girl to school.

Iddings described the parents as “distraught.”

Cedars-Sinai officials said a urinalysis revealed that the girl had ingested cocaine. She was reported in stable condition and was expected to be released by this morning.

Del Vecchio said no arrests had been made “because the detectives are still trying to figure out where she got that cocaine.”