Father describes agony of pulling 2-year-old son off life support after mom left him alone in NYC apartment that caught fire
A devastated dad said he made the agonizing decision to pull his 2-year-old son off life support after the toddler was left alone in a Washington Heights apartment that caught fire.
King Riley Corporan, 2, had been declared brain dead after he and his siblings were left alone by their mother in her Audubon Avenue apartment on the night of March 20, cops said.
“I didn’t take him off right away,” grieving father Francisco “Gus” Corporan told the New York Daily News, expressing shock at the mother’s decision to leave the helpless kids unattended. “That’s my son, I didn’t wanna just take the plug off. I couldn’t.”
The prospect of the tot’s organs living on as a donor gave him hope, he told the newspaper.
“I said, ‘Well, he might not be here physically but he still lives on,'” Corporan said. “Somebody else is living because of him.
“My son is still here, not with me, but he’s out there,” he added. “I know he’s still alive [because his heart is still pumping in somebody else’s body.”
King’s 1-year-old brother is still in critical condition, “bravely fighting as he continues to receive medical care,” according to a GoFundMe, started for the family by the father’s coworker, Princiee Norvil.
King’s 8-year-old sister barely made it out alive.
The boy’s mother, Skilyn Maldonado, 23, was charged with three misdemeanors of acting in a manner injurious to a child, according to police.
At Maldonado’s arraignment prosecutors asked for bail, but a judge instead enrolled Maldonado in an alternative to incarceration program.
When the blaze started, the 8-year-old girl ran out of the apartment and banged on a neighbor’s door, pleading for help, a neighbor told the Daily News.
“She was saying there is a fire in her apartment,” neighbor Jayden Zorilla, 14, said. “My mom and I were trying to see if we can bring out the kids, but the couch was on fire. When I entered, the window glass broke and there was blazing fire.”
Jayden’s mother, Yokania Germosen, 40, wrapped Maldonado’s daughter in a blanket and asked her 10-year-old son Justin to take her downstairs.
Another neighbor told the News the mother had a habit of leaving her three children alone.
“She would just leave the kids home by themselves,” a neighbor, who wished not to be named, said. “She doesn’t have a job at all. She would leave them alone morning, day and night.”
The same neighbor said Maldonado and the children’s father could be heard fighting about the mother’s lifestyle.
“She’s young and wanted to enjoy her life,” the neighbor said about Maldonado. “[Corporan] been trying to get her out of the house for a bit. They fight all the time. You can hear him screaming, ‘Leave the house! You don’t do nothing. You been going into the street and never coming home!’”
Maldonado is scheduled to be in court again on April 25, according to officials.
