A grieving mother has demanded answers after her two-year-old son choked to death on a meatball while at a Connecticut daycare, despite staff reassuring her that the child was fine.
Shamyra Cooke says claims by the YWCA New Britain that they had followed the correct procedure during the tragic incident were “a slap to my face” and that she had known immediately something was wrong. “There is no way I can bury my son without answers. This is just too much for a person. My son barely got a chance to live,” she told reporters.
Cooke said she had dropped her son, Saunti Reynolds, off at daycare at 8:55 a.m. Tuesday, but received a call from the center’s director less than three hours later saying that he had choked on a meatball. The director had told Cooke that her son was fine but that she needed to come back to the daycare. When she arrived, EMT staff were already on the scene and Saunti had already been intubated.
First responders were performing CPR, but despite reassurance from the director, Cooke knew something was wrong. “When they're closing the door like that, I just know something's wrong. There's no way my son is breathing if they're closing the door and blinds are down,” she said.
Cooke, who works in a hospital, said she could have done something to save her child if she had been alerted sooner. “Even if they didn’t know how to do the Heimlich, I work in a hospital, I could do it. I could get it out and no one called to even give me that chance,” she said.
The Connecticut Department of Children and Families is investigating the incident. In a statement, YWCA New Britain said staff had responded “immediately and followed all emergency procedures”, but Cooke disputes this, arguing that if she had been contacted in time, her son may still be alive.
