Girl, 3, fighting for life after being locked in minivan for hours at Queensland childcare centre

A three-year-old girl is in a critical condition in hospital after spending several hours trapped inside a parked minivan in hot weather.

The toddler is understood to have been found ‘unresponsive’ in the van outside the Le Smileys Early Learning Centre on Lucas Street in Gracemere, near Rockhampton in Central Queensland.

Queensland Ambulance confirmed the three-year-old was ‘unconscious’ when found just before 3pm.

‘The girl was located on a bus out the front of a school on Lucas Street [and] was transported in a critical condition to Rockhampton Hospital,’ Queensland Ambulance said on social media.

The girl was found ‘unresponsive’, the ambulance service’s Central Region operations manager Jason Thompson told media on Wednesday afternoon.

Mr Thompson described the situation as ‘traumatic’ for crews who treated her and admitted he had ‘goosebumps’ talking about it.

On the crew’s arrival Queensland Police were already on scene and escorted the crew into the childcare centre where the young child was on the floor in the admin area,’ he said.

Mr Thompson said it wasn’t known how long she was locked inside the van, but some reports said it may have been many hours.

‘It’s believed she has been on the bus since 9.30am, she was found around 3.15pm,’ Nine News Queensland reporter Tim Arvier told 4BC on Wednesday afternoon.

Temperatures in Rockhampton reached a maximum of 29C on Wednesday.

The toddler is understood to be in a ‘critical but stable’ condition in hospital with her parents at her bedside.

Five police vehicles were in attendance monitoring access to and from the childcare facility.

They are understood to be interviewing the centre’s staff and inspecting a white minivan, especially a seat in the middle of the bus.

The incident echoes the tragic case of Maliq Nicholas Lloyd Namok-Malamoo, known to his family as ‘Meeky’.

He was found dead on the Goodstart Early Learning Centre minibus in the Cairns suburb of Edmonton on February 18, 2020.

Michael Lewis was jailed for six years for manslaughter after the three-year-old boy was left on the minibus in temperatures that reportedly reached 56 degrees Celsius.

During the trial the court heard there had been confusion about the pick-up of Meeky on the morning of his death.

The court was also told that Lewis failed to take Meeky off the bus or sign him in after arriving at the centre.