A 3-YEAR-OLD CHILD attending Kingsbridge Heights Community Center (KHCC) was treated on scene by EMS personnel for a reported seizure on Friday afternoon, May 17, and was later transferred to Montefiore Medical Center, city officials said.

 

The NYPD and FDNY/EMS said they were alerted to the incident at the center’s Kingsbridge Heights address at 3101 Kingsbridge Terrace at 12.24/12.25 p.m. respectively.

 

Verbal exchanges overheard on police radio between an NYPD dispatcher and officers from the 50th Precinct indicated that both police and EMS were at the scene and that a 3-year-old boy was “breathing, but not awake.” An officer is later heard saying, “They’re taking him to Monte” [Montefiore Hospital]. In a later exchange, when the dispatcher asks for an update on the child’s status, an officer from the 50th Precinct is heard saying at around 12.33 p.m., “He’s breathing and awake.”

 

Norwood News arrived at the center at 12.56 p.m. and at that stage, no police or ambulance vehicles were present, except for an EMS battalion unit (Vehicle #908), which was parked at Kingsbridge Terrace and Ft. Independence Avenue. After contacting KHCC by email for comment, Norwood News later visited the center once again, at which point, the staff for the evening shift had taken over, and although some staff seemed to be generally aware that something had happened with a child earlier in the day at the center, as they had not witnessed the incident, they were unable to provide any specifics.

Montefiore Medical Center declined to comment on the incident, citing patient privacy reasons, and Norwood News has been unable to retrieve a status update on the infant’s condition. FDNY/EMS declined to answer some additional questions we raised. We will share any updates we receive.

 

News of the incident brought back alarming memories of when, as reported, emergency services were called to respond to another daycare center in Kingsbridge Heights, El Divino Niño Daycare Center (now closed), located on Morris Avenue on Friday, Sept. 15, 2023, when 1-year-old Nicholas Feliz Dominici died after alleged fentanyl poisoning. Three other infants also fell ill but survived the alleged affects of alleged fentanyl exposure. All four were treated with Narcan in efforts to reverse the effects of the narcotics but only three survived.

 

As reported, the caretaker of the daycare center, Grei Mendez, along with Carlisto Acevedo Brito and Renny Antonio Parra Paredes, her alleged accomplices, and Felix Herrera Garcia, husband to Mendez, were later arrested in connection with the incident after fentanyl and other paraphernalia were discovered underneath the floorboards of the daycare business. They all face federal charges and are presumed innocent unless and until convicted in a court of law. Mendez, Acevedo Brito, and Herrera Garcia also face State charges. As reported, Mendez appeared in Bronx Criminal Court in April.

Police later confirmed that following Friday’s investigation into the incident at KHCC, no criminality was suspected. On the same evening, KHCC celebrated its 50th anniversary fundraising gala in Manhattan where the center and many of its team members, past and present, were honored [story to follow].

 

When informed of the incident involving the infant at KHCC earlier that day, local Councilman Eric Dinowitz (C.D. 11) who attended the gala as both an honoree and as someone bestowing honors on others in the form of a city council proclamations, said something to the effect of, “That’s terrible.”

 

Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson, who was also in attendance at the KHCC gala on Friday night, along with State Sen. Robert Jackson (S.D. 31) and Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (A.D. 81), announced during her recent State of the Borough address, her support for a new Bronx Opioid Center to combat high rates of opioid-related deaths in the borough. Norwood News had previously reported on this topic in the context of the death of a woman in Walter Gladwin Park.

 

Meanwhile, as also reported, in December 2023, at the behest of Nicholas’s heartbroken parents, new laws were introduced by local legislators at a City and State level led by City Council Member Pierina Sanchez (C.D. 14) and State Sen. Gustavo Rivera (S.D. 33), to protect children in daycare facilities from opioid exposure. Read our previous stories on Narcan kit training here and here.

NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) provides training and regularly updated information on how to obtain and administer naloxone (Narcan). Click here for more information.

 

Mendez, and her co-defendants, are deemed innocent unless and until convicted in a court of law.

 

On Monday, May 20, KHCC responded to Norwood News’ request for comment on Friday’s incident, saying, “KHCC is committed to fully upholding the privacy and confidentiality of all its community members at all times and supporting the well being of all the children and families it serves.”