One Child Dead, Three Hospitalized After Possible Fentanyl Exposure at NYC Day Care

A one-year-old is dead after a possible fentanyl ingestion in a Bronx day care on Friday.

Four children were found unresponsive in the basement of Divino Nino Day Care. They were scheduled to wake up from their nap at 2:30 p.m., the New York Post reported. They had all eaten 90 minutes prior. 

A couple of two-year-old boys and an eight-month-old girl survived the alleged drug overdose. Upon arrival, authorities administered Narcan to three of the children, and one responded to it. These three children are in stable condition. 

A neighbor of the day care heard a worker’s screams following the children’s discovery. 

“She was yelling for help,” Mel Ramirez told the Post. “She was screaming and saying, ‘The kids are dead! The kids are dead!’ multiple times.”

She went outside and saw the bodies of the children laying outside the day care’s front entrance.

“They were just pale and unresponsive,” Ramirez told the Post. “[One of the boys’] mouths was, like, open. I was like, ‘Oh my God. I can’t do anything about it either.’”

The day care received its license in May and has the capacity to care for eight children aged six weeks to 12 years old. 

Authorities executed a search warrant and found a kilo press, a machinery used to bunch large bundles of drugs together, AMNY reported.

Drug overdose deaths in New York City have more than tripled since 2013, according to New York University. Fentanyl — which is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine  — was found in 80 percent of people who injected drugs, with only 18 percent intending to take it.     

Public Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan said every three hours, a New Yorker dies from an overdose, Breitbart News reported. 

In June, New York City introduced vending machines that include Narcan — an overdose reversal drug — offered for free.