7 year old who choked on her school lunch dies after three days on life support

A seven-year-old girl who choked on her school lunch in Brooklyn has died.

Noelia Echavarria ended up on life support for three days after the incident which happened at her school. 

The family's attorney confirmed that the little girl died at 8:39 p.m. on Friday.

'My niece came out of the lunchroom eating a sandwich. They say she was choking. She was holding her throat,' said Carlos Santiago, Noelia-Lisa's uncle to ABC7.

'I want the school really, really come and give me the answer. And I want them to tell me the reason they let my daughter, be like that in the hospital, and nobody coming to tell me,' said the girl's mother Ana Santiago'.

Meanwhile, the EMT who attended the emergency call has been suspended from his job because it is against company policy to make a stop without being called. 

 

Assist Ambulance worker Qwasi Reid was transporting a nursing home patient last Wednesday with his partner when they were flagged down at a red light by a distraught man.

 

Reid told Fox News that his partner told the man they already had a patient and there was nothing they could do. 

 

Reid said he knew that a choking girl was more urgent than transport of an elderly person so he decided to step in and try to save the girl's life.

Reid jumped out of the back door of the ambulance and started administering first aid.  

 

He said he immediately cleared out the little girl's mouth, put an oxygen mask on her, used a defibrillator and started CPR.

'She was blue in the face and lips. No response. Unconscious unresponsive,' Reid said.

Sadly by the time Reid began helping the girl she had already turned blue since no one at the school tried to help her before he arrived.

Reid, who has been suspended from his job without pay for stopping to help the girl, says given the opportunity he would have made the same decision all over again.

'I don't regret it,' Reid said. 'I'd do it again. If I know there's a child choking, I'm going to do my best to help her,' he added.

Reid said Assist Ambulance suspension of his proves that the organization is more concerned about insurance money than they are the well being of people in need.

 

It remains unclear what the first grader choked on or why she had turned blue by the time medics arrived. 

 

The principal of the school denied claims that the staff didn't do enough to help the child.

'Speaking on behalf of the teachers and staff of P.S. 250,' Principal RoseAnn LaCioppa wrote in a letter to parents of the school, 'I want to reassure you that our school personnel has been trained in response to emergencies and we will always follow all protocols and procedures to ensure the safety of all our students.'

The family's attorney David Perecman has several questions surrounding the choking incident.

'I'm troubled about the amount of time, it took to call 911,' Perecman said.

'With the little information we have, it appears there was a 911 phone call at about 2:30. But that's the same time that the EMT called 911. And if that's the case, that means he's the first person to call 911. And if he's the first person to call 911, then the school did not.'

'I'm trying to find answers, but nobody is giving me one,' said Noel Santiago, Noelia-Lisa's grandfather. 

 

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