3 Children Pulled Out of Day-Care After Crash : Accident: They are removed by parents, and a dozen more are absent from center a day after six were injured by a car careening into a sandbox.

Lauren England, 4, was crying Tuesday morning as she left Children’s Village preschool for the last time. So was Bonnie Salsgiver, the director of the day-care center where a car careened through a block wall Monday, injuring six toddlers playing in a sandbox.

“I’m going to miss you, Lauren,” Salsgiver said as she hugged the blond girl, who was wearing a pink jersey dress and miniature black cowboy boots. “Honey, you can come back and visit me.”

Lauren was one of three children yanked from the preschool program by parents the day after the crash, and at least another dozen were absent Tuesday. At the school, students drew get-well posters for those still in the hospital, and police officers, who had been at the scene of the crash, returned with balloons, badge stickers and coloring books.

The driver of the car remained in Orange County Jail on $25,000 bail but still had not been charged. Two of the six injured children had been released from the hospital while the conditions of the four others were improving. One suffered a broken leg and the others cuts and bruises, some severe.

Investigator Mike Clabaugh said he expected results within a few days of a drug test given to the driver, Darrell Emerson Nelson, Tuesday morning. Nelson’s blood-alcohol level after the accident was 0.04%, less than half the legal threshold for drunkenness.

Nelson told police Monday that he smashed through the wall and into the playground after swerving to avoid a head-on collision. Clabaugh said that unless the drug test is positive, or witnesses to the accident come forward, the driver is unlikely to face charges. He will either be arraigned or released this morning, police said.

“What we’re trying to do is corroborate his statement, or find somebody who would refute his statement,” Clabaugh said. “I’ve only got his statement. I’d like to find someone else to add to it and tell me otherwise. . . . At this stage of the game, we can’t say one way or the other.”

By 8 a.m. Tuesday, dozens of children were swinging on the swings, pedaling tricycles along a concrete path and sitting in the sand as cars whizzed past on busy Westminster Avenue. But the plastic slide and other toys in the fenced-off area where the smallest children play--and where the late-model Datsun landed on top of them the day before--remained empty.

“We’re going to go exactly as though nothing has happened, but talk about what did happen if the kids want to,” Salsgiver said.

A Red Cross volunteer spent the day at the school counseling parents and teachers and planned to offer group sessions for parents later this week.

“The parents are real uncertain; they don’t know what to do. They just want to hold their children close,” said Zena Polly, an Irvine child psychologist, as several parents stood around the yard holding their children.

“Parents don’t know if they should keep the kids at home or drop them off at school and have business as usual,” Polly said. “This kind of thing shakes up everybody’s feeling of the world being a predictable place. That’s why it’s important to get back to normal--they need life to get back to a predictable pattern so they can restore their feeling of the world being a safe place.”

Parents, though, were wondering Tuesday whether Early Childhood Schools’ Children’s Village is a safe place. With the playground next to such a busy street, many said they had always feared an incident like Monday’s.

“You’ve got to figure you’ve got all these cars coming down the street, somebody can swerve,” said Ed England, Lauren’s father. Added Janet Figueroa, who plans to transfer 5-year-old Jay to a different preschool next week: “This street is just too busy for this school--you never know what would happen.”

But officials in charge of licensing day care centers said Tuesday that Children’s Village was found to be in “substantial compliance” with state regulations when the center was inspected a year ago and that they had not been investigating any safety complaints regarding the school.

State guidelines do not dictate where preschool playgrounds should be placed, only that they must be enclosed. A planter of trees and a concrete wall separates the Children’s Village playground from the street.

“They seemed to take every conceivable precaution,” said Mary Strong, president of the Orange County Child Care Assn., which includes 700 day-care providers. “You can’t prevent every conceivable accident. There’s no way of knowing . . . that someone is going to just drive into you.”

Edward Chen, president of Early Childhood Services, the company that runs Children’s Village and five other care centers around the Southland, said that when the wall is reconstructed, added safety devices such as a guardrail also will be built.

Like Strong, most parents--including some whose children were injured in the crash--described Monday’s as a “freak accident” and said they do not blame the school.

“There’s nothing wrong with the school, there’s something wrong with the driver,” said Sheldon Lorenson of Garden Grove.

“If it happened here, it could happen anywhere,” agreed Michele Gonzales.

At school Tuesday, children were clearly shaken by the accident. Many had been playing in the yard when Nelson’s vehicle plowed in, trapping several children beneath it, and relived the trauma when they saw it on the news, parents said.

“He was nervous about coming to school. He said, ‘Is that car going to be there?’ ” Lorenson said of 4-year-old Shayne.

Jay Figueroa was so nervous Monday night that he vomited and begged to sleep with his baby brother, his mother said, adding that Jay’s heart was still pounding as he stood outside the Children’s Village gates Tuesday morning.

Teacher Faith Malmberg, whose 2-year-old daughter, Madison, was hit by the concrete blocks Nelson’s car loosed from the wall, said her child “was hysterical” and “keeps talking about the car.”

Jerry, 3, also was scared and kept saying, “‘A car crashed into my school, Mommy, I can’t go to school anymore,’ ” Michele Gonzales said.

Fathers of two toddlers who remained hospitalized Tuesday said they would let their children decide whether to return to the preschool.

“We’re going to leave it up to Amanda,” Jim Beauleau of Fullerton said of his 2-year-old daughter, who is scheduled to be released Thursday from Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, where she was treated for a severe concussion and minor back injuries.

“I don’t know what the psychological repercussions will be,” Bill Sommers said Tuesday at a press conference outside UCI Medical Center, where 2-year-old Danial had 18 stitches in his ear and was recovering from facial cuts. “I am concerned about how my son would feel about going back there.”

Times staff writers David A. Avila and Otto Strong contributed to this article.