12-year-old Brooklyn boy, Yakim McDaniels, is dead today after playing “chicken” with a parking lot gate which crushed him to death Sunday when the gate rose and his arm became stuck.
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According to the New York Daily News, McDaniels was horsing around with five other kids who climbed onto the 20-foot iron electronic gate at Lott Ave. near Watkins St. in Brownsville.
According to neighbor Anthony Figueroa:
“It’s a game. Kids are always on that gate. They play chicken to see who can hang on the longest.”
Around 4:30 p.m., the game turned deadly when one of the boys activated the gate’s motion sensor.
One police source said, “One of them swiped his leg to break the safety beam and made it go back up.” Yakim stayed on while the two others who were also clinging to the roll-up gate hopped off, the source said.
Within moments, Yakim’s hand was caught in the top of the frame, preventing him from jumping off, the police source said.
The FDNY had to cut through the gate to pull out the boy, who was seen convulsing as he dangled during the harrowing 20-minute ordeal.
Yakim’s mother, Doris Chase, rushed out in panic said witness, Reinaldo Blandon:
“His mother was just crying — everyone was crying. She just kept yelling, ‘My baby! My baby!.’ He was already dead when they pulled him out,” he said. “They put him on a stretcher and put a white sheet over him.”
Emergency responders rushed Yakim, who was in the seventh grade at Middle School 358 and one of six children, to Brookdale University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to police sources.
The gate is equipped with sensors to prevent it from coming down on top of pedestrians, but not to prevent it from rising, said Penny Wisneski, president of Reliant Realty, the agency that manages the Lott Ave. complex, Plaza Residences.
After the tragic accident, Yakim’s devastated mother was reeling at the thought of living without her son.
“I don’t know how I’m going to sleep,” Chase said. “I have to walk by his bedroom to go to the bathroom.”
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Yakim’s family.
