The parents of a mortally wounded 11-year-old girl wailed in grief and crumpled to the floor during their little girl’s final agonizing minutes at Lincoln Hospital, a witness said.
Maria Lopez, a patient advocate at the hospital, described the heartbreaking events to The Post Wednesday — and said that Kyhara Tay’s dad refused to believe his daughter was gone while her mom begged for her life.
“‘Baby girl, stop playing with me! Wake up! Wake up!'” mom Yahisha Gomez pleaded Monday as her young daughter faded away before her eyes, Lopez said.
“But she was gone,” Lopez said. “They saw her take her last breath.”
She said Gomez was frantic as her daughter was rushed into emergency surgery with a bullet wound to the stomach — only to die 10 minutes after later being wheeled into intensive care.
Lopez said the slain girl’s father, Sokpini Tay, even had to be held back when he tried to get to his dying daughter.
“That’s how hurt he was,” Lopez said. “He wanted to go in the operating room to help save his baby. What parent won’t want to do that?”
Kyhara was outside a Bronx nail salon around 5 p.m. Monday when a stray bullet struck her in the stomach. She stumbled into the salon and collapsed.
First responders then rushed the girl to Lincoln Hospital.
“I was there in [the] Trauma [Unit] when they brought her in,” Lopez recalled. “I saw when they took her out of surgery and brought her to the ICU. She lasted about 10 minutes in ICU.
“Both of them told her to wake up. They kissed her. They held her hands,” Lopez said of the grieving parents.
“It was horrible,” she said. “As a mother to a mother, I hugged her and shared my tears with her. A pain like that never goes away.”
Police said two men on a moped, including the gunman, were targeting a group of men standing nearby but instead struck Kyhara. Cops are now offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the shooter.
“She was a promising young life cut down short by senseless gunmen firing at a target with no regard for anybody else,” Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said at a memorial erected at the side of Kyhara’s shooting.
“To the individuals — and I’m talking directly to the cowards that did this on Monday, OK?” Clark said. “Those who shot and killed Kyhara, I want you to know that as Bronx district attorney, we’re coming for you.
“Turn yourself in because we’re coming for you.”
The prosecutor said Kyhara is the second child killed in the Bronx so far this year — including Angellyh Yambo, 16, who was gunned down outside her school.
In all, Clark said 16 children have been shot this year, all but two of them between the ages of 5 and 15 in the borough in 2022.
