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Mother charged for dropping boy in Ohio zoo cheetah enclosure

Mother charged for dropping boy in Ohio zoo cheetah enclosure

By Kim Palmer CLEVELAND (Reuters) - An Ohio day care worker has been charged with child endangerment after she allegedly dropped her 2-year-old son into a cheetah enclosure at a Cleveland zoo on the weekend, court documents showed on Monday. The boy ended up in the enclosure with the 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 media reports said he suffered a broken leg. Michelle Schwab, 38, of Delaware, Ohio, who works as an assistant director for a daycare center, will be arraigned on Wednesday, April 22 in a Cleveland court for one count of children endangerment, a misdemeanor, a court official said. The arraignment date was moved from this Tuesday. Witness 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 an injury to his leg and released, officials said. Schwab has been an assistant director at KinderCare, a Columbus-area daycare 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 and addressed," spokeswoman Colleen Moran said. Moran said Knowledge Universe closely examines issues involving the treatment of children by their employees, even if the incidents occur outside of its centers. 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 that the last significant patron/animal incident occurred in 1941 when a child riding an elephant fell, and the child broke an arm. (Reporting by Kim Palmer in Cleveland and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Mary Wisniewski, Bill Trott and Eric Walsh)