The devastated father of a 1-year-old who died of a fentanyl overdose at a Bronx daycare held back tears as he told it was his son’s first week at the facility.
Nicholas Feliz-Dominici was identified as the deceased toddler who was one of four children who ingested fentanyl while being cared for at Divino Nino Day Care on Morris Avenue in Kingsbridge on Friday afternoon.
The boy’s distraught father, Otoniel Feliz, 32, appeared teary-eyed as he spoke outside his apartment, just a 15-minute walk from the Morris Avenue day care center.
“It was his first week,” he said. “That was his first week.”
Otoniel, who says he is a father of five children, moved to the United States from the Dominican Republic in 2018 before moving with his family into the apartment near Divino Nino Day Care in 2019.
He and his wife, who wished to remain anonymous, went to the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center to find a suitable daycare center for their son, Nicholas.
While they waited nearly a year to find a suitable place to care for the young infant, they were grateful to hear that Divino Nino Day Care could help them.
“We had a good recommendation.” We were told it was a great place. “It looked like a nice place,” he explained.
Pictured: The one-year-old boy who died after taking fentanyl at a Bronx daycare center
Otoniel Feliz appeared misty-eyed as he spoke to Web.com outside his apartment
Police tape had been removed from the street and hung outside the entrance to the Divino Nino Daycare on Morris Avenue
On Friday afternoon, a contamination tent could be seen in front of the daycare center
Four children under the age of three “took fentanyl” on the premises.
But within a week of being in day care, Nicholas took fentanyl, a substance that has caused a spike in overdoses across the United States
Heartbroken Otoniel said they were given a tour of the daycare when they first dropped off their son and it looked like any other, with toys and children’s furniture inside.
But after enrolling their son, Otoniel and his wife were never allowed to return as their son was often brought to them by their carers, he claimed.
“Parents don’t have permission to go in.” “You see it on the first day to see where your son will be, but after that you don’t have permission to go in,” he claimed.
“They said they don’t want the contamination from outside to get inside because they keep everything clean,” they said.
He revealed the shocking moment Otoniel and his wife heard the news, explaining that she had picked up their son from daycare earlier.
When she arrived at the center, police, emergency services and police officers blocked the street. Her heart sank as she received a call that no parent ever wanted to hear.
“My wife called me and said our child was going to the hospital. “We thought he was fine, but ten minutes later my wife called me back on the way to the hospital and said he had died,” he explained, fighting back tears.
All four were taken to hospital, but Nicholas did not survive. The condition of the others is stable and the eight-month-old child is being treated for dehydration.
The children were reportedly put in for a nap, only to be woken up at 2:30 p.m., and had eaten about 90 minutes beforehand, sources said.
When police arrived at the grim scene, all four children were administered Narcan, one of whom responded to the life-saving drugs, police said.
On Saturday, a police tape hung over the door of the site showing officers on site continuing their investigation.
Mayor Eric Adams expressed his condolences to the family and said he had spoken to the parents who lost their son.
At a news conference Saturday morning, Adams said the event was intended to serve as a warning to people with opioids in their homes.
“Seeing the pain that they are experiencing is something that we New Yorkers and all parents experience.
“This crisis is real and a real wake-up call for people who have opioids or fentanyl in their homes.”
The daycare has capacity for eight children ages six weeks to 12 years, records show.
One of the women believed to be running the daycare center was brought in for questioning.
No arrests have been made in connection with the incident and police are still investigating.
Sources with knowledge of the investigation confirmed that “several drugs were found at the daycare center as well as a kilo press.”
The once active crime scene had turned grim as neighbors began to come to terms with the tragedy
Anna Ortiz-Irving, 73, lives in the building next to the daycare and said she is “sick” about what happened as investigators continue to pore over evidence
Anna Ortiz-Irving, 73, lives in the building next to the daycare and said she is “sick” about what happened as investigators continue to pore over evidence.
“I was amazed because this mother and her daughter are the nicest people,” she exclusively told , referring to the two women who ran the daycare.
“From what I’ve heard, fentanyl has been found in all four of the baby’s systems.”
Oritz-Irving said they “brought the police dogs on Friday night” and claimed her neighbor, who had been interpreting for police and the superintendent, “found drug paraphernalia” after getting a search warrant for the daycare.
“They found the slicer and what they call the presser,” she said.
Sources with knowledge of the investigation confirmed that “several drugs were found at the daycare center as well as a kilo press.”
Large quantities of medication are packaged using a kilo press.
Sources also confirmed that all four children “came into contact with fentanyl.”
Divino Nino Daycare passed its annual unannounced inspection on Sept. 6 with no violations, city records say, after receiving its license in May.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse describes fentanyl as a powerful synthetic opioid approved by the FDA to treat severe pain.
Over the last decade, fentanyl has been manufactured and distributed illegally, and other illegally manufactured synthetic opioids have increasingly been found in the drug supply.
During this time, fentanyl and related substances have contributed to a dramatic increase in drug overdose deaths in the United States.
The number of drug overdose deaths related to the synthetic opioid fentanyl more than tripled in the United States from 2016 to 2021, according to a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Fentanyl is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine and is increasingly being mixed with other illegal drugs, often with fatal consequences.
The CDC report showed that the rate of fentanyl-related drug overdose deaths increased from 5.7 per 100,000 people in 2016 to 21.6 per 100,000 in 2021.
According to Merianne Rose Spencer, one of the report’s authors, fentanyl-related deaths increased by about 55% in 2019-2020 and 24.1% in 2020-2021.
In the United States, difficulties in treating substance use disorders during the COVID pandemic coincided with a surge in the use of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, and the number of opioid-related deaths rose to a record high in 2020.
Between 2016 and 2021, the rate of drug overdose deaths involving methamphetamine increased more than four-fold, and the number of cocaine overdose deaths more than doubled, the CDC said.
Deaths from oxycodone and heroin decreased slightly during the study period.
In 2016, about 2 in 100,000 people died from an oxycodone-related overdose. In 2021, this figure fell to 1.5 per 100,000 people.
According to the report, heroin-related deaths fell from 4.9 per 100,000 in 2016 to 2.9 in 2021.
The Biden administration is pushing for action as the number of drug-related overdose deaths in the U.S. surpassed 100,000 in 2021, according to government estimates.