GRANDPA IS CHARGED IN TOT’S DEATH

Rap follows 2-hr. ride to hosp

A Bronx grandfather was busted for child endangerment after taking a dying girl on a two-hour ride to a Queens hospital instead of a medical center less than a mile from his home, authorities said.

Three -yearold Jaylynn Evans (photo), after a sleepover at her best friend’s g ra n d f a t h e r ’s Mott Haven apartment, collapsed Thursday morning and later died at Cohen’s Children’s Medical Center in Little Neck.

Cops arrested Anthony Richardson, 59, about three hours after they were called to the hospital.

“Why? How?” asked Jaylynn’s mom, Tyana Lloyd, (photo) about the criminal charge. “Because he didn’t take her to the nearest hospital or call an ambulance? You’re saying she could still be alive if he took her to the nearest hospital or called an ambulance? He didn’t mean no harm.”

Lloyd said she believes the grandfather of her daughter’s closest friend “wasn’t thinking straight” when he headed to the Queens facility where he typically takes his own ailing relatives. She said Richardson told her as much when the two spoke after Jaylynn’s death.

“That’s the hospital he takes all the kids to if they get sick or anything like that,” Lloyd, 20, said Friday at her East New York home. “He goes straight to that hospital because he knows it’s good for kids. He always goes there, anytime something happens.”

Lloyd last saw her daughter alive on Wednesday, when she agreed to let Jaylynn attend a sleepover with Richardson’s 4year-old granddaughter at his Bronx home. She gave Jaylynn some medicine for a low-grade fever, and the little girl seemed to be feeling better when she left for the sleepover.

But the play date turned tragic when Jaylynn came out for breakfast and collapsed to the floor the next morning.

“Tony said, ‘It’s time to eat,’” recounted Lloyd. “And Jaylynn fell and closed her eyes. And that’s when he took her to the doctor. According to what he told the detectives, he said that ’s the only good hospital he knew for children.”

Doctors at the Queens hospital called cops around 7:15 p.m., to report that Richardson drove the sick child there from his Mott Haven home.

Richardson, who lives less than a mile from Lincoln Medical Center, told police the two little girls were watching television and eating snacks when Jaylynn fell to the floor.

“She was so precious,” said Jaylynn’s grandfather, Winston Ramsey. “Young, happy … She’s a bright little girl. I can’t believe it.”

The city medical examiner will determine the exact cause of death. Lloyd said she believes her daughter contracted COVID-19 at daycare earlier in the week, and was told by doctors that she tested positive for the virus.

The mother, already overwhelmed by her daughter’s death, was also reeling from word of Richardson’s arrest.

“They take care of Jaylynn just like one of theirs,” she said with tears in her eyes. “Honestly, I haven’t been able to think. I’ve just been sitting here crying.”