MANHATTAN — A sick 5-year-old boy apparently drowned in his bathtub early Tuesday after his mother placed him in the water to soothe his fever, sources said.
Jezreel Arias was rushed from the Elliot Houses on 10th Avenue and West 25th Street to Bellevue Hospital Center about 1:20 a.m., where he was pronounced dead, police said.
The boy had a fever, and his mother put him in the bathtub to cool down, a source said. She stepped away from the tub, and when she returned, the boy had apparently drowned, according to the sources.
Police said the boy showed no signs of trauma and there were no obvious signs of criminality.
But cops continued to investigate the incident as they awaited autopsy results from the medical examiner's office, officials said.
Tuesday's autopsy on the boy was inconclusive, "pending further testing and investigation," a spokeswoman from the medical examiner's office said.
