Child Endangerment

A childcare provider has been sentenced to probation for felony child endangerment. The Minnesota Attorney General's Office says a Stevens County Court has sentenced Crystal Searle to five years of probation and 180 days in jail for her role in a brain injury to an infant in March of 2022 in Donnelly. The Attorney General's Office alleges that Searle was babysitting a two-month-old infant and noticed the child needed emergency medical care, but waited 45 minutes for the child's mother to pick him up rather than call 9-1-1. The mother immediately took the child to the emergency room, where doctors discovered he had increased cranial pressure and a subdural hematoma that required brain surgery. The infant survived but spent weeks in intensive care. Searle was providing childcare at her home in Stevens County at the time of the emergency.