Three two-year-old children found playing on a “building site” after they wandered away from their nursery are lucky to be alive, the shocked mother of one of the toddlers said last night.

Nallia Trott said it was thought the toddlers crossed a busy road and walked through a car park on Tuesday before they were spotted and rescued by residents in a Pembroke neighbourhood.

They are thought to have been missing from the First Church of God nursery on Pembroke’s North Shore Road for 15 minutes.

However, Ms Trott, 22, said: “It could have been three minutes, they could have been hit by a car.”

She added: “It would have been a shorter distance for them to cross the street and end up in the ocean than where they went.

“If they had just gone in a different direction, police would have been looking for my child in North Shore.”

She added: “They could have been gone 15 seconds and someone could have kidnapped them.

“They’re so tiny, if someone in a car had hit them they probably wouldn’t even know it was a toddler; they could have thought it was a cat, they’re just babies.”

Ms Trott added: “I’m definitely traumatised. I don’t want to send her back to any school but I can’t quit my job and stay home with her until she’s ready for elementary.”

She said she was so terrified by the incident she has hired a family member, who has given up work, to care for her daughter.

Ms Trott said she chose the nursery because of its “great reviews” and her only child, Skylah, had been attending for only two weeks.

She signed her daughter in at 8.50am on Tuesday before she headed for work at One Communications in Hamilton.

She was contacted by a friend about two hours later, who sent a photograph of Skylah and two playmates and explained they had been found by a family “on a construction site”.

Ms Trott, from Paget, said: “At first it really didn’t register what was going on, it just didn’t click, I was like, this has got to be a joke.”

She tried the nursery twice before she got an answer and was stunned when staff played down the incident.

Ms Trott said she was told: “Yeah, they slipped out, they were only in the parking lot.”

She added: “The teacher kept saying to me, ‘oh, well, they were only gone for 15 minutes’ and ‘we didn’t think this was important enough to call you because we didn’t want you to worry because it’s not that big of a deal’.

“I was so angry I hung up the phone because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”

Skylah had already been collected by her father when Ms Trott was reunited with the toddler.

Ms Trott said: “When I got her and had her in my arms, I was crying a lot and she started crying then because she realised, something’s wrong with mama.”

Ms Trott stayed at home with Skylah on Wednesday and arranged for her younger sister, Kellie, 19, to look after her niece until she returns to studies in Florida next month.

The children had made their way to a property on nearby Crane Lane where building work is taking place and they were seen by Shirlequa Simons, who lives near by.

The 21-year-old beauty therapist said she heard the toddlers’ voices, looked out a window and saw the children “in a trench”.

Ms Simons added: “I dropped everything and just ran.”

She said: “I don’t know how or how fast, but they had got in it. As soon as two of the little boys’ heads popped up, I just ran.”

She stood on a plank to lift the children out before she and her brother, Dashae, 29, returned them to the nursery.

Ms Simons recognised Skylah from social-media posts from a cousin, who was also the little girl’s godmother, and was able to get in touch with Ms Trott.

Miss Simons said: “It was just a whole crazy situation.”

She added that her neighbour was building and that “he’s got a lot of stuff back there; he’s got metal rods, he’s got the mixer. Anything could have happened to them”.

Ms Trott was later taken to the house by its owner to let her see where the toddlers were found “covered in dirt and sand”.

She said the children must have “walked through a parking garage, on to the next neighbourhood, then crossed the road. It’s a very busy road, it’s a turn right off North Shore.”

Denniqua Matthew, the nursery’s director, confirmed yesterday that three children had left unaccompanied and was “made to believe” they were away for between ten and 15 minutes.

She said: “Because there is still a current investigation going on with the Department of Environmental Health and [the Department of] Family Services, I’m not at liberty to discuss it at the moment.”

Ms Matthew said she had sent parents of children at the nursery an e-mail to reassure them of their children’s safety.

She added: “It informed them that there was an incident that occurred and that the children were back at the nursery safe and sound and that there were some things that were asked of parents.”

She would not provide specific details about the requests, but it is thought they included closing doors securely when children are dropped off and collected, as well as delivering the youngsters — who can be aged between 12 months and five years — directly to a teacher to ensure they are accounted for.

The Right Reverend Vernon Lambe, the church bishop, said: “We’ve been in this service to the community for 35 years. This is new to us.

“We extend our sincere apologies as well as our heartfelt sorrow over the event occurring and we are grateful that it wasn’t any worse than it was.”

A government spokesman said: “The incident was reported to the Department of Health and the matter is being investigated.

“Independently of this incident, the Ministry of Health is in the process of reviewing the regulation of childcare providers, and that work is in development.”

A police spokesman said that officers had started an investigation into the incident.