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4 kids recovering from injuries after a car slammed into day care in Philadelphia

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A delivery driver’s SUV plowed through a Bucks County day care and into a room full of napping toddlers.

Just after 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 27, 2020, a black BMW sedan crashed through the front of the Children of America day care center on the 300 block of Knowles Avenue in Upper Southampton Township, outside Philadelphia. The car didn’t just clip the building — it tore 30 to 40 feet into a classroom where 17 children between the ages of 3 and 4 were napping. Nearly 80 kids were inside the facility when it happened.

• Four children were taken to Abington Hospital, including one listed in critical condition; the other three sustained minor injuries, with some early reports citing up to five children treated in total.
• The driver — a woman between 50 and 60 years old who was visiting the center in a business capacity, not to pick up her own child — was taken to St. Mary Medical Center and cooperated with investigators.
• First Assistant District Attorney Gregg Shore confirmed the woman had no children enrolled at the day care, and the cause of the crash remains under investigation.

The Crash Scene on Knowles Avenue

The Children of America center sits in a strip mall along Knowles Avenue, a stretch of Upper Southampton Township that families in this stretch of Bucks County pass through every day. Investigators say the BMW sedan, driven by a female delivery driver, blew through the front facade with enough force to travel deep into an interior classroom rather than simply stopping at the entrance. That distance — 30 to 40 feet past the point of impact — is what put a room of sleeping 3- and 4-year-olds directly in the vehicle’s path instead of a lobby or hallway.

With close to 80 children inside the building at the time, staff and emergency crews had to account for a lot more kids than just the ones hurt in the impacted classroom. Upper Southampton Township Manager Joe Golden described a community left rattled by how close a routine Thursday afternoon at a neighborhood day care came to a far worse outcome.

The Injured Children

Four children were rushed to Abington Hospital following the crash. One was listed in critical condition, while the other three suffered injuries described as minor. Some of the earliest reports out of the scene put the number of children treated as high as five, a discrepancy typical of the chaotic first hours after a mass-casualty response involving that many young kids in one room.

Nearly 80 children were inside the day care when the car tore 30 to 40 feet into a classroom of napping 3- and 4-year-olds.

The Driver and the Investigation

The driver, a woman in her 50s or 60s, was at the center on business rather than as a parent — Gregg Shore, the county’s First Assistant District Attorney, made clear she had no children enrolled there. She was transported to St. Mary Medical Center for treatment and has cooperated with investigators as they work to determine what caused the BMW to leave the road and drive into the building. As of Thursday evening, no cause — mechanical failure, medical episode, or driver error — had been publicly confirmed.

Golden’s comments captured the mood in Upper Southampton: a township that isn’t used to headlines like this one, suddenly dealing with a scene that pulled in ambulances, police, and worried parents converging on a strip mall day care in the middle of a weekday afternoon.

Investigators are expected to lean heavily on the physical evidence at the scene — skid marks, the vehicle’s data, and witness accounts from staff inside the classroom — to piece together whether this was a mechanical failure or something else entirely, with the DA’s office signaling more details will follow as the probe continues.