Trinidadian Immigrant Wants Answers After Child Chokes To Death

Dyasha Phelps Smith

By NAN Staff Writer

News Americas, BROOKLYN, NY, Weds. Oct. 29, 2014: A Trinidadian immigrant mother wants to know why her special needs child, Dyasha Phelps Smith, choked to death on a muffin at her Brooklyn school Tuesday.

Catherine Smith, 70, wants answers into the death of the 21-year-old child she adopted at age 3-year-old.

Smith was autistic and needed to have her food cut into small pieces and monitored as she ate or drank, her mother said.

But on Tuesday, the 21-year-old was eating the muffin in a classroom at the Star Academy, a special education program at the School for International Studies on Baltic St. in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, NY, when she began choking.

Paramedics were called and rushed her at about 12:15 p.m. to New York Methodist Hospital, where she died, authorities said.

Last night, New York schools officials were investigating the incident even as Catherine Smith demanded answers.

“I want to know why my child passed away at the school like that. She was supposed to have one-to-one attention, I want an autopsy,” the retired home health aide told News 4 New York.“She never choked at my house, how could she choke at school?”

The Trinidadian immigrant is also concerned that she did not learn of her daughter’s death from school officials but from the doctors at the hospital.

“This is negligence … They would always try to calm her down with food … I expected to see her alive and I saw my baby dead in a hospital bed,” the mom was quoted as saying by the New York Daily News.

Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña for her part said guidance counselors would be available at the school today, Wednesday, October 29th,  to “support the community during this tragedy.”

“I am deeply saddened to hear of this loss, and my heart goes out to the student’s family and the entire school community,” Fariña said in a statement.

But to Catherine Smith it’s all talk.

“She died like a dog. Why would this happen to a child amongst so many qualified people?,” the bereaved parent told the New York Daily News. “It’s total carelessness.”