Why do I get the feeling he was dead before he fell down the chute?
From the NY Daily News:
A 9-year-old retarded boy tumbled to his death down a Harlem nursing home laundry chute yesterday - a victim of what his devastated family called a horrifying lack of supervision.
Investigators were trying to determine how Frashawn Jones plunged nearly two stories and wound up wedged near the bottom of the chute at the Specialty Hospital of Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center.
"Why? Why was nobody watching?" Frashawn's mother, Azeana Jones of Coney Island, wailed to her daughter, Inisha Jones, 19. "They were supposed to be watching him."
Frashawn, who was born with Down Syndrome and needed a tracheal tube to breathe, apparently wandered from his third-floor room, past a nurses' station and into the laundry room.
The room's door, usually locked, was propped open, police sources said.
Frashawn suffered extensive head injuries in what investigators believe was a tragic accident, the sources said.
An autopsy was expected to be performed today as Frashawn's family lashed out in anguished rage.
"He's 9 years old, fighting to stay alive, and some moron leaves the door open," said his brother Shamar Jones, 22. "They messed up big-time, and they are going to pay."
Hospital officials said Frashawn had been present for a 6:15 a.m. head count when staff entered his room and turned on his TV, but was missing by 6:30 a.m.
Frashawn was not discovered by staff until 8:45 a.m. Police bloodhounds were brought in to retrace the boy's final steps.
Joseph Brown, a spokesman for the hospital, could not account for how the child fell.
"There is a lock on the door to the closet and a lock on the door to the chute. They are self-locking. They are locked at all times and there is no propping," Brown said.
He said the facility has adequate staffing and did a head count on the children every 15 minutes.
The nurses' station on Frashawn's floor was always staffed by one or two people, Brown said, but he noted it is a busy station.
Frashawn's family and loved ones of other patients complained of lax supervision, particularly overnight.
"It a problem with the night shift," said Julia Zalinode, whose daughter lives there.
The health care center was cited for serious deficiencies by a state watchdog agency in 1990 after five patients died in 1989. The most recent inspections in 2004 found no deficiencies, according to state Health Department records.
Frashawn's family tried to find comfort in memories of the spunky boy who had been born three months premature and lived his whole life in hospitals.
His family called him "Little Lucky" because of his will to live. He overcame severe asthma and problems walking.
Zalinode fondly recalled Frashawn as "a good little boy."
"He ran around a lot," she added. "He was very active. He needed extra supervision."
Frashawn????
I have seen plenty of movies where people ride the laundry chutes to escape bad people....maybe the kid was being chased?
Maybe the lawyers can sue the movies? Maybe I am retarded because I tried to fit down the chute at my house growing up?