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Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Student,With Autism Dies After She Chokes at Brooklyn School Cafeteria
By KATE TAYLOROCT. 29, 2014
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The New York City Education Department is investigating the death of a 21-year-old student with autism who choked on a muffin at her school in Brooklyn at lunchtime on Tuesday.
The student, Dyasha Smith, was nonverbal and wore diapers, according to her mother, Catherine Smith, 70, who took Dyasha in as a foster child when she was 3 and later adopted her. She said her daughter was supposed to have full-time supervision on the bus and at her school, Star Academy in Cobble Hill.
She said she had told the school’s staff members that they needed to cut up her daughter’s food, because otherwise she would put too much in her mouth at once. “She will take a handful of something and put it in her throat and swallow it at once,” she said, adding, “She’s like a child, like a baby child.”
After a school safety agent called 911 at 12:11 p.m., paramedics were called to the school, where they found a nurse performing CPR, according to a Fire Department employee who insisted on anonymity because he had not been given permission to speak. It was not clear if anyone performed the Heimlich maneuver. She was declared dead at New York Methodist Hospital.
“If somebody was with this child, they could have been able to save her from choking,” Ms. Smith said, saying that she believed the school staff had been careless.
“This child went to school healthy,” she added.
It is the second time in a little over a year that the Education Department has had to investigate the death of a student with autism. In October 2013,Avonte Oquendo, 14, slipped out an open door at his school in Queens, leading to months of searching. His remains were found in January. A report by the special commissioner of investigation found that Avonte’s mother had warned his teacher that he should be watched at all times because he “likes to run,” but that that information had not been shared with administrators.
Ms. Smith said her daughter’s “individual education program,” the official document describing what a school should provide a student, called for one-to-one supervision. But a spokeswoman for the department declined to answer questions about what care was supposed to be provided, saying that it would be the subject of an inquiry by the special commissioner of investigation.
Ms. Smith said that around lunchtime on Tuesday, she heard from another parent at the school, which is in the same building as the School for International Studies, that something had happened to her daughter. Ms. Smith said she started frantically calling the paraprofessional who was assigned to Dyasha Smith, who did not answer her phone.
After about half an hour, a vice principal called her and told her that Ms. Smith had choked and that paramedics were trying to resuscitate her. Soon after, he called her again to tell her that her daughter was being taken to New York Methodist Hospital. When she got to the hospital, she was told that Ms. Smith had died. She said that her daughter’s neck was twisted and her hair and clothes were covered with vomit.
Students at schools in the building said that when people in the basement-level cafeteria realized that something was wrong with Ms. Smith, someone ran to the first floor to get the nurse.
On Wednesday morning, students said, a guidance counselor on the public address system asked for a moment of silence for Ms. Smith. Then two cards were passed through the school for students to sign, one for her family and another for the nurse.
By KATE TAYLOROCT. 29, 2014
Photo
The New York City Education Department is investigating the death of a 21-year-old student with autism who choked on a muffin at her school in Brooklyn at lunchtime on Tuesday.
The student, Dyasha Smith, was nonverbal and wore diapers, according to her mother, Catherine Smith, 70, who took Dyasha in as a foster child when she was 3 and later adopted her. She said her daughter was supposed to have full-time supervision on the bus and at her school, Star Academy in Cobble Hill.
She said she had told the school’s staff members that they needed to cut up her daughter’s food, because otherwise she would put too much in her mouth at once. “She will take a handful of something and put it in her throat and swallow it at once,” she said, adding, “She’s like a child, like a baby child.”
After a school safety agent called 911 at 12:11 p.m., paramedics were called to the school, where they found a nurse performing CPR, according to a Fire Department employee who insisted on anonymity because he had not been given permission to speak. It was not clear if anyone performed the Heimlich maneuver. She was declared dead at New York Methodist Hospital.
“If somebody was with this child, they could have been able to save her from choking,” Ms. Smith said, saying that she believed the school staff had been careless.
“This child went to school healthy,” she added.
It is the second time in a little over a year that the Education Department has had to investigate the death of a student with autism. In October 2013,Avonte Oquendo, 14, slipped out an open door at his school in Queens, leading to months of searching. His remains were found in January. A report by the special commissioner of investigation found that Avonte’s mother had warned his teacher that he should be watched at all times because he “likes to run,” but that that information had not been shared with administrators.
Ms. Smith said her daughter’s “individual education program,” the official document describing what a school should provide a student, called for one-to-one supervision. But a spokeswoman for the department declined to answer questions about what care was supposed to be provided, saying that it would be the subject of an inquiry by the special commissioner of investigation.
Ms. Smith said that around lunchtime on Tuesday, she heard from another parent at the school, which is in the same building as the School for International Studies, that something had happened to her daughter. Ms. Smith said she started frantically calling the paraprofessional who was assigned to Dyasha Smith, who did not answer her phone.
After about half an hour, a vice principal called her and told her that Ms. Smith had choked and that paramedics were trying to resuscitate her. Soon after, he called her again to tell her that her daughter was being taken to New York Methodist Hospital. When she got to the hospital, she was told that Ms. Smith had died. She said that her daughter’s neck was twisted and her hair and clothes were covered with vomit.
Students at schools in the building said that when people in the basement-level cafeteria realized that something was wrong with Ms. Smith, someone ran to the first floor to get the nurse.
On Wednesday morning, students said, a guidance counselor on the public address system asked for a moment of silence for Ms. Smith. Then two cards were passed through the school for students to sign, one for her family and another for the nurse.
, fukk it, i dont care about this kid." they have a hard job and it sounds like an accident
