NEW YORK – An 11-month-old boy died on the morning of Jan 19 after being burned by steam that leaked from a radiator in a bedroom at a Brooklyn apartment, police said.
Police received a 911 call for help at the apartment, on East 14th Street in the Midwood neighbourhood, just after 6am (7pm on Jan 19, Singapore time) officials said. When officers arrived, they found the boy with burn wounds, police said. He was unconscious and unresponsive.
The child, whose name was not released, was taken to Maimonides Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, officials said.
The leak’s cause was under investigation on the afternoon of Jan 19, officials said. Police filed a request with New York City’s Buildings Department for an inspection “due to a faulty radiator causing steam to fill the bedroom,” records show.
The boy’s mother was feeding another child when the 11-month-old wandered into the bedroom and was hit by the steam, police said.
The building’s boiler was last inspected Feb 2, according to Approved Oil, the Brooklyn company that performed the inspection. No defects were found, according to a record filed with the Buildings Department.
Steam heat is ubiquitous in New York City, but injuries caused by it usually occur in industrial workplaces and are relatively rare. Deaths are even rarer.
In 2016, two sisters, ages 2 and 1, died after being severely burned by steam from a radiator in a temporary apartment for homeless people in the South Bronx. In 2017, their parents sued the city, the building’s owner and Bushwick Economic Development Corp., the social services agency that administered housing.
In June, the parents settled with the city for US$300,000 (S$402,000) and with the agency for US$4.5 million, court records show.
City agencies have cited the Midwood property where the child died Friday for 57 violations, most of them from 2010 to 2013, city records show.
Mr Ruvin Itskovich, who is listed in Buildings Department records as the current owner, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The four-story brick building is in a middle-class neighbourhood of similar apartment houses and detached multifamily homes.
On the morning of Jan 19, two police officers and two men wearing skullcaps stood outside the family’s apartment on the first floor. Two strollers sat out front. At one point, Buildings Department officials were seen entering the building.
Inside the building, neighbors who knew the baby and his parents mourned his death.
Mr Muhammad Haseeb said he awoke in the early darkness to screaming on the floor below. A woman wailed, and a man moaned, Mr Haseeb said, trembling at the memory.
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