An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Even as busi­ness­es in the vicin­i­ty of the Fu­ture Lead­ers Child­care and Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tre, Tu­na­puna Road, Tu­na­puna, con­duct­ed op­er­a­tions as nor­mal yes­ter­day, the doors to the nurs­ery re­mained tight­ly locked.

The sud­den clo­sure fol­lowed one day af­ter the death of sev­en-month-old Makia Orms­by on Mon­day.

Orms­by, who lived with his par­ents at San­ta Ri­ta Road, Llu­en­go Vil­lage, Mara­cas, St Joseph, was found un­re­spon­sive at the fa­cil­i­ty on Mon­day.

He had been at­tend­ing the day­care for the past three months.

Re­ports in­di­cate the prin­ci­pal care­tak­er and own­er, 37, of Brazil, bathed and fed Orms­by around 4.30 pm, fol­low­ing which she put him to sleep on a bed in the liv­ing room.

It was re­port­ed that when the ba­by’s 25-year-old moth­er ar­rived around 5.22 pm to col­lect her child, the un­re­spon­sive in­fant was brought out and hand­ed to her.

Rais­ing an alarm im­me­di­ate­ly with nurs­ery of­fi­cials as she re­alised he was un­re­spon­sive, the pan­icked moth­er con­tact­ed both the po­lice and Emer­gency Health Ser­vices (EHS) and they ad­vised the own­er on how to per­form CPR on the in­fant.

Two EHS of­fi­cers ar­rived a short while lat­er and took over from the own­er who had still been in the act of ad­min­is­ter­ing CPR to the in­fant who had again be­gun dis­play­ing signs of life.

Po­lice of­fi­cers from the Tu­na­puna Po­lice Sta­tion, which is with­in walk­ing dis­tance of the nurs­ery, ar­rived around 5.45 pm.

The in­fant along with his moth­er and oth­er rel­a­tives were es­cort­ed to the Wendy Fitzwilliam Pae­di­atric Hos­pi­tal, Mt Hope, where he was treat­ed.

Orms­by was pro­nounced dead around 6.45 pm.

An au­top­sy was sched­uled to be per­formed yes­ter­day but was post­poned un­til to­day.

When Guardian Me­dia went in search of Orms­by’s rel­a­tives at their home, on­ly his 90-year-old great-grand­fa­ther was present.

Un­able to say much about the cir­cum­stances that led to Orms­by’s pass­ing, Lloyd Danzell de­scribed him as, “the laugh­ter child.”

He said, “He wasn’t a bad child ... he wasn’t sick ... he was a joy­ful child.”

Danzell said he was a very loved ba­by and that when the news reached the fam­i­ly of his death, “Every­body ... they all bawl down the place.”

Orms­by was the on­ly child of his par­ents.

A close fe­male rel­a­tive whose child al­so at­tends the same day­care, yes­ter­day said the fam­i­ly re­mained shell-shocked over the sud­den death.

She too con­firmed Orms­by was a smil­ing, hap­py ba­by who had just been learn­ing to walk.

“He was a re­al hap­py, sweet ba­by ... every­body had loved that lit­tle boy,” she wept.

Day­care of­fi­cials said yes­ter­day that they would be closed in­def­i­nite­ly.