Preschoolers slid through caustic chemical for 15 minutes in childcare disaster, after staffer missed ‘danger’ label

Friday, 26 June 2026

Multiple children were taken to hospital with chemical burns from a slide at Woolston’s Kindercare.

Pre-school children rushed to hospital with chemical burns had been sliding through caustic steriliser at a Christchurch childcare centre for 15 minutes before the activity was stopped, a new report shows.

Five children and two teachers were injured after the incident at Kindercare Woolston in December, but how it happened remains unclear with the Government and the provider withholding key details from the public.

An investigation by WorkSafe into the incident is ongoing. Kindercare Learning Centre Ltd, which has at least 48 childcare centres across the country, could face a fine of up to $50,000 if its Woolston centre is found liable for breaching health and safety laws.

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Questions about how the steriliser was mistaken for ordinary dishwashing liquid, whether any staff member has been referred to the Teaching Council, and what changes have been made to prevent a similar incident have gone unanswered.

What we do know is that on December 5 a cup of commercial steriliser liquid was mistakenly poured onto a makeshift water slide.

According to the company’s heavily redacted internal report, children began playing on the water slide at 12.10pm on a grassed area adjacent to the centre’s outdoor play area.

At 12.20pm a staff member went to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle marked “dishwashing detergent”, completely unaware it was a highly corrosive commercial steriliser liquid.

After pouring it onto the slide at 12.27pm and seeing it didn’t create as many bubbles as the original detergent, the same staff member decided to buy “more dishwashing liquid from the nearby dairy so they would have designated dishwashing liquid for future slide activities”.

At 12.40 a child complained of a “sore bottom”, which staff initially thought might have been a bee sting. As the child’s skin became hot, a staff member questioned whether the detergent used on the water slide could have been the cause.

Staff then stopped the activity and began hosing children down in outdoor water troughs and showers until emergency services arrived.

The ministry declined to provide a photo of the detergent bottle, claiming it was commercially sensitive.

However, it said it had a prominent warning on the front: “DANGER KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN, READ LABEL BEFORE USE”. The report stated the product was supposed to be directly plumbed into the dishwasher and personal protective equipment (PPE) used whenever handling it.

The number of staff supervising in the activity is unclear.

The centre is licensed for 88 children aged 0 to 5. Minimum child-to-adult ratio requirements for children aged 3 to 5 is 10:1.

The ministry issued the centre with a provisional licence for two months after Kindercare had finished its own investigation. The centre was monitored for non-compliance with its licence related to medical assistance and incident management, hazard and risk management, excursions, and “persons responsible”.

This included “frequent short-notice or unannounced visits to the service” and the provision of evidence of staff training, daily checks and required documentation.

The centre had not undergone a full compliance licence assessment since 2011. Director of education for Christchurch and Canterbury Coralanne Child said only a partial assessment was needed because “multiple health and safety criteria do not relate to the incident”.

Dr Sarah Alexander, chief executive of Office for Early Childhood Education, said an independent body was needed to review the handling of such events.

She said the assessment would have been scaled up if significant issues had been identified, but this was “deemed unnecessary as the service had already isolated the area and mitigated the immediate risk”.

Child said in addition to the chemical burns incident, the ministry was notified of one other serious incident at the centre in 2025 and one in 2024.

Details of both cases detail were withheld.

Early childhood education expert and advocate Sarah Alexander said it was astounding the centre was not issued with a provisional licence on the day of the incident.

She said this would have sent a strong signal to parents that the ministry was taking the issue seriously, and that the centre was “on notice”.

“This is just another example of why there needs to be an independent body that can critically review how the ministry is handling these cases.”