FDNY Firefighter's Infant Daughter Dies of COVID-19
By Geoff Herbert
Source Syracuse Media Group, N.Y.
Editor's note: Find Firehouse.com's complete coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic here.
A New York firefighter has revealed his infant child died of coronavirus.
Jerel La Santa, who joined FDNY in the Bronx less than a year ago, tells The New York Post that his five-month-old daughter Jay-Natalie La Santa died Monday after contracting COVID-19.
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She was laid to rest in a rose-gold dress with glittered roses that she originally planned to wear for his FDNY graduation ceremony last month, but it was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The child’s godmother is a funeral director who arranged for a private, informal ceremony at her funeral parlor.
“She went out looking like a princess,” Jerel La Santa, 30, told the newspaper while fighting back tears Thursday. “She had such a beautiful white little casket because we didn’t want her in a body bag.”
“My baby girl was so beautiful,” the child’s mother, Lindsey La Santa, told ABC News.
According to the Post, Jerel La Santa had just finished his first shift as a New York City firefighter on March 21 when he found out their daughter was in the emergency room.
Jay-Natalie was tested twice for COVID-19 — once when she was first hospitalized and again six days later — before doctors confirmed she had the disease caused by coronavirus. Her mother said Jay-Natalie, who had a heart condition, was initially diagnosed with bronchitis.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the La Santa family during this tragic time," the fire department said in a statement.
A GoFundMe account has raised more than $41,000 to help the parents pay for healthcare costs.
More than 869,000 cases of coronavirus and nearly 50,000 deaths have been confirmed in the U.S. New York has been hit the hardest, with over 263,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 15,000 deaths statewide.
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