Girl’s tragic game
A 7-year-old Queens girl played a practical joke on her mom by pretending to hang herself with a bathrobe belt — but when the woman walked out of the room her daughter really did choke and gasp for air, police sources told The Post on Thursday.
A short time later, Precise Tucker was brain-dead and on a ventilator despite a valiant attempt by the family and medics to open her airway, the sources said.
Her mom, Con Ed worker Purity Baldwin, told cops that Precise is a prankster who likes to play dead or fake injuries, the sources said.
On Wednesday, she found the girl in the kitchen with the belt around her neck with the other end tied to the refrigerator around 8:30 p.m. in their 19th Street apartment in Astoria.
Baldwin, 39, told Precise to stop playing around and then left the room with the girl’s brother, Daizae Tucker, 15 — while Precise was still tied at the neck and munching on potato chips, the sources said.
When Daizae came back, he found his little sister gasping for air, yelled for his mom and begged neighbors for help.
“He ran in and said, ‘Something is wrong with Precise,’ ” recalled John Tziastoudis. “He had tears in his eyes.”
Tziastoudis, 28, and another building resident named Debbie ran into the family’s apartment to find the unresponsive girl sprawled out on the floor, her panicked mother standing over her.
“Her mother was frantic,” Tziastoudis said. “She was looking at her daughter and saying, ‘ Oh my God, Oh my God, my baby, my baby.’ ”
“Her mother was crying her eyes out, ‘ My baby is gone. My baby is gone,’ ” the neighbor said. “So the first thing I did was check her pulse. At that point, she had a very faint pulse.”
The neighbors scooped out some chipshi llodgeddd iin theh girl’sil’ throat, then administered CPR while waiting for first responders to arrive.
“[EMTs] put a tube in her stomach to help her breathe and they continued to do chest compressions as they took her out on a stretcher,” Tziastoudis said. “All the time she was still unresponsive.”
Precise briefly breathed on her own again following the CPR, but was on life support and a ventilator Thursday at Long Island Jewish Cohen Children’s Medical Center.
Police sources and the girl’s aunt — Purity’s sister — told The Post doctors had declared the child brain-dead.
“They called in a brain specialist last night and she failed every test,” the weeping aunt said.
Police are investigating, but sources said the family has no history with the city Administration for Children’s Services.
“Her mom said she had done other pranks on the family in the past that involved her [pretending] being physically injured or appearing to be deceased,” a police source said.