In a shady Bronx daycare center last week, a fentanyl cloud formed, and a father whose 2-year-old son narrowly avoided becoming the second victim said he believed the child was going to pass away after being exposed to the lethal drug.
Jose Lino, 32, recalled the incident to The Post on Tuesday while holding his young son, Jaziel, in their Bronx home. “He couldn’t walk or wake up from sleep,” Jose Lino said.
“We tried to wake him up, but he wouldn’t do it,” Lino continued. “So, we took him to the hospital.”
The 1-year-old boy who attended the daycare along with the toddler, Nicholas Feliz Dominici, passed away on Friday after also being exposed to the incredibly lethal synthetic opioid. The toddler lived.
At the childcare facility, which authorities claim served as a front for a drug mill, two additional children under the age of three were also affected by what appears to be fentanyl poisoning.
Lino responded emphatically, “Hell yea!” when asked if he was concerned for his son’s safety.
When Lino and his wife Josselin tried to get Jaziel to walk, he fell, and Lino said, “When I see my son like that, I’m nervous,” he added.
The father continued, “He was ill.”
He was treated by medical professionals at BronxCare Hospital by the couple.
“Everything’s good,” Lino declared. “The doctors say he will recover,”
Grei Mendez De Ventura, the 36-year-old owner of Divino Nio Daycare, and Carlisto Acevedo Brito, her 41-year-old cousin-in-law, have both been charged with Nicholas’ murder.
The two allegedly used the company as a front for a fentanyl drug manufacturing operation.
According to federal prosecutors in Manhattan, they are also charged with federal drug crimes for their alleged crimes.
Along with Jaziel, an 8-month-old girl and another 2-year-old boy were also sickened by the fentanyl, a potent opioid that is at least 50 times stronger than heroin.
They were all taken to the hospital.
On Monday, Mayor Eric Adams claimed that naloxone, a medication used to reverse overdoses and more commonly known by its brand name Narcan, had saved their lives.
The loss of Little Nicholas has devastated his family.
It’s really difficult. The boy’s father, Otoniel Feliz, told reporters outside the family home in Kingsbridge on Monday that they are all devastated and that his four other children are now afraid to even go to school.
They don’t want to go through what Nicholas did, he said.
Feliz, a golf course maintenance worker in Westchester County, claimed that his son had only attended the daycare for a week or so before he tragically passed away.
He declared, “Drugs are dangerous. I lost my son. But you can have it.
Tuesday, Lino argued that the managers of the drug-filled center ought to go to jail.
He declared, “Those are bad people.”
He continued, “They’re supposed to be looking after little kids. “They shouldn’t be doing that in the same apartment,” was the statement.
