Boy, 2, Goes Missing at Nursery School. When He’s Found in a Closed Grit Bin, Mom Thinks He’s Dead

A missing toddler was found limp in a closed grit bin at a nursery school in Scotland earlier this month. When his mom first opened the storage container on the playground, she thought he was dead, according to reports.

On Friday, Jan. 16, a mom of five arrived around noon to pick up her 2-year-old son from Maybury Primary Early Learning and Childcare Centre in Edinburgh, the BBC, The Scotsman and Edinburgh Live reported. After waiting for 15 minutes, she became frightened when she learned that her child had been missing for almost an hour and the police had been called, the outlets reported.

A desperate search ensued until the 36-year-old mom, who hasn’t been publicly named, opened the bin, which contains rock salt used to combat ice and snow on roads and walkways, and found the little boy lying inside, The Scotsman reported.

“When I opened the box, I thought he was dead because he was curled up in the fetal position and wasn’t moving,” the mother told the outlet. “He was cold, shivering, his skin was pale and his face, mouth and nostrils were covered in grit.”

She added, “When I picked him up, he was disoriented and just slumped into my arms. And once we were inside, he didn’t appear to be his usual self and he was shivering and gulping down water.”

The child was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was discovered to have elevated salt levels in his blood, and was discharged that night, the outlets reported. 

Maybury Primary School did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

In November, it was agreed that the toddler would have ”tag team supervision,” meaning that staff had to alert each other when the child was moved between different areas at the nursery school. His mother told The Scotsman that she hadn’t been told that the plan had been discontinued without her consent. She was also concerned that her son managed to have been unaccounted for for such a length of time.

While the mom initially sent her son back to the center, she later decided to keep him home, the paper reported. “After everything that’s happened, I just can’t send him back there,” the woman told the outlet. “No one has actually admitted to what went wrong on that day.”

The incident has since been reported to the Edinburgh Council and the Care Inspectorate, according to the outlets. At the nursery school, the grit bin has been locked, CCTV is being employed and there are extra employees to monitor the playground, according to The Scotsman. 

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City of Edinburgh Council Council Leader Jane Meagher described the child’s disappearance on Jan. 16 as an “awful incident” and offered her sympathies to the child’s family, according to a statement shared with PEOPLE.

“It’s simply unacceptable that such a young child could be unaccounted for and put at risk, particularly in a place where they should be safe and cared for,” she said.

“I want to reassure the family that the Care Inspectorate were immediately informed, and urgent improvements have already been made at the nursery,” Meagher continued. “I am insisting that these are independently reviewed to make sure all lessons have been properly learned and that this can never be allowed to happen again.”