CLEVELAND — An Ohio day care worker has been charged with child endangerment for allegedly dropping her 2-year-old son into a cheetah enclosure at a Cleveland zoo during the weekend, court documents showed Monday.
The boy ended up in the enclosure with two 4-year-old male cheetahs on Saturday and was quickly recovered. He was not injured by the animals, according to a statement from the zoo, but reports said he suffered a broken leg.
Michelle Schwab, 38, of Delaware, Ohio, who works as an assistant director for a day care center, will be arraigned April 22 on one count of children endangerment, a misdemeanor, a court official said.
Witnesses said Schwab was holding her son over an observation wall at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo when he fell several feet into the enclosure.
The boy was taken to a hospital for the injury to his leg and released, officials said.
Schwab has been an assistant director at KinderCare, a Columbus-area day care facility. A spokeswoman for the parent company, Knowledge Universe, said it planned to investigate the incident at the zoo.
“She is currently home with her family and will remain out of our center until this issue is investigated,” spokeswoman Colleen Moran said. The cheetah exhibit was open on Monday, but the walled observation area where the incident took place remains closed, according to zoo spokesman Joe Yachanin.
The zoo said the last significant patron/animal incident occurred in 1941 when a child riding an elephant fell and broke an arm.
At the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium in November 2012, Maddox Derkosh, 2, was mauled to death when he fell into an exhibit of African painted dogs. His mother, Elizabeth Derkosh, had lifted him to the top of a railing at the exhibit to get a better view. He fell from her grasp.
Maddox's death is the only visitor fatality in the 116-year history of the Pittsburgh Zoo.
