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Police Investigate 3-Year-Old's Death at Brooklyn Day Care Center

By  Gustavo Solis and Jess Wisloski | July 7, 2013 11:16am | Updated on July 7, 2013 3:57pm

 A daycare center at 2054 65th St. in Bensonhurst, where a 3-year-old died suddenly on July 6, 2013.
A daycare center at 2054 65th St. in Bensonhurst, where a 3-year-old died suddenly on July 6, 2013.
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DNAinfo/Gustavo Solis

BENSONHURST — A 3-year-old boy died suddenly on Saturday afternoon while he was in the care of a childcare center in Brooklyn, police said.

Andy Li, 3, of Homecrest, was found unconscious and unresponsive by rescuers at 3:26 p.m., inside the home-based day care center at 2054 65th St., police said.

Andy was rushed to Maimonides Hospital, but later declared dead, police said.

An investigation was ongoing, cops said, and a medical examiner's report was pending.

Nobody at the daycare facility, which is licensed to a woman named Li Chan Wu according to public records, answered the door on Sunday morning. Wu has had a license for the 12-seat day care since 2002, according to the Office of Children and Family Services' records.

According to the boy's parents, who spoke through Lin McKeon, a family friend, a day care worker told them that the incident occurred when the worker tried to calm the crying little boy down by taking him outside for a walk in the scorching heat. The worker also told the boy's parents that they called 911 as soon as he began complaining of feeling sick, McKeon said.

The boy's devastated parents hadn't eaten or drank anything since his death, added McKeon, standing outside the family's apartment in Homecrest.

"He loved his mother (Hua Li) and would kiss her on the lips whenever he saw her," she said, adding, "He was a happy, healthy child. He loved Angry Birds and toy cars."

Both parents work as food deliverypersons for restaurants in the city, said McKeon, the mother in Chinatown, and the father in Sheepshead Bay. "They are so poor they cannot afford to pay for a funeral," she said.  "I hope they find a way to raise the money."

The family, which also has a 10-year-old son, had not contacted the day care, she said, and the daycare had not reached out to them.

"The parents are waiting for the doctor to check the body," said McKeon.

A next-door neighbor of the day care said there had never been an issue at the center before.

"There were four or five police cars outside," Jay Lui, 19, who said he was playing computer games when a friend called him.

"Police put yellow tape on the entrance of the house and talked to parents as they picked up their children."