SHOCKING!
Electrified bar hurts tot in new NYCHA outrage
A 4-YEAR-OLD Brooklyn girl suffered the scare of her young life when she touched a section of electrified scaffolding outside the Red Hook East Houses last week.
“I’m very upset she had to go through this,” said little Laila Davis’ dad, Jamell.
“She complains that she can’t breathe. She has pain in her heart and in the arm that she touched the rail with.”
The episode came last Monday after Laila and her 8-year-old sister spent the day with their grandmother at the public housing development — a regular routine for the girls.
That afternoon, their great-grandmother came over and later escorted them downstairs to meet their father.
Just after they walked out of the housing project’s front entrance, Laila casually touched the metal scaffolding — unaware it was carrying a live current.
“She started screaming — crying and screaming,” said the great-grandmother, Awilda Lopez, 69.
“I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what was happening.”
Lopez said the shock was so powerful it knocked Laila off her feet.
“I caught her in time before she hit the ground,” Lopez said.
Laila was taken to New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center and released the next day. Nearly a week later, the brave girl tried to describe her ordeal to the Daily News.
“It felt like a hot thing. I was shaking. I was crying,” she said before motioning to her chest. “It hurt. It hurt on my arm and my breathing place.”
“She cries in the night,” Jamell Davis, 30, said. “She’s afraid to go to the playground in front of the building. This used to be her little domain.”
The scaffolding was electrified as a result of a missing piece that connects two wires and the lack of a grounding device, said the family’s lawyer Bonita Zelman.
She said the family is planning to file a lawsuit seeking $20 million in damages.
“The New York City Housing Authority thinks they can treat people who can’t afford better houses like second-class citizens,” Zelman said. “They left a deadly condition.”
Workers repaired the scaffolding later that night, Lopez said.
A NYCHA spokeswoman said the work area no longer poses a danger — but she declined to say what kind of work was being done there or what led to the problem.
“NYCHA staff continue to investigate this incident, and have taken steps at this site to ensure the safety of residents,” the spokeswoman said.
The incident marks the latest black eye for the beleaguered city agency.
Last week, NYCHA chief John Rhea revealed to The News that the city will overhaul the agency’s board, dumping its highly paid members and bringing in unsalaried replacements.
The surprising announcement came as two scathing reports ripped NYCHA’s management.
An ongoing News investigation exposed NYCHA’s failure to spend $42 million set aside for security cameras and its decision to sit on nearly $1 billion in federal funding dating to 2009.