Mom suing NYCHA after pipe scorches tot

A QUEENS mom plans to sue NYCHA after her infant son was badly burned when he came in contact with an exposed heating pipe in their apartment.

The young boy suffered secondand third-degree burns on 11% of his body — but even more outrageous is that NYCHA didn’t act quickly to fix the scalding pipe after the horrifying incident.

A NYCHA worker initially told the boy’s mom, Wanda Ramos, that the agency wasn’t responsible for insulating the pipe.

The agency later followed up and said it would make the repair — but the pipe still wasn’t insulated until three weeks after the boy was burned, according to court documents filed by Ramos.

The slow response came despite Ramos and a social worker for the Administration for Children’s Services pressing NYCHA to make the fix.

Ramos, 34, made the accusations in a Nov. 29 petition in which she asked a Queens Supreme Court judge to let her file a late notice of claim — the first step in suing the city. The petition included gruesome pictures of the injuries.

The boy, now 1, was burned in his bedroom at 1 a.m. on Feb. 3 — just a few days after he and his mom moved into the apartment in the Astoria Houses. He was hospitalized with burns on his torso, arm, scalp and foot.

Ramos went to the management office at the Astoria Houses on Feb. 6 and demanded NYCHA fix the pipe, the petition says.

An ACS worker also called NYCHA to demand a fix and said the boy wouldn’t be allowed back in the apartment until the agency made the repair, according to the petition. Even though the repair only required adding insulation to the pipe, NYCHA didn’t do it until Feb. 24, the petition says.

Ramos declined to comment for the story. Her son remained in the hospital while they waited for the pipe to be fixed.

NYCHA said that the frontline staff initially — and incorrectly — told Ramos that the agency would not cover the pipe. But the staff followed up, and the agency decided to make the repairs, according to NYCHA.

Workers tried to inspect the pipe on Feb. 8 but couldn’t gain access, the agency said. Staff were able to contact Ramos on Feb. 22 and the pipe was covered two days later.

“We are devastated by this tragic incident,” NYCHA said in a statement.

The agency added that it urged other NYCHA residents to reach out to its customer contact center if they had questions about childproofing their heating pipes.

NYCHA and its chairwoman, Shola Olatoye, have been under pressure since last month, when the city Department of Investigation said the agency had been falsely claiming it had performed all of its required lead paint inspections.

Long before the Investigation Department report, the Daily News has chronicled the agency’s deficiencies and backlog of repairs. The News highlighted in April how the completion time for fixing problems requiring a plumber, electrician, carpenter or other trade professionals has increased in the past year.

And even the simple insulation of pipes can take years.

In 2012 the Bronx family of a man with cerebral palsy sued the city after he was twice burned by an exposed heating pipe in their NYCHA apartment in the Castle Hill Houses.

The man’s mother, Annette White, told The News at the time that they had been waiting for more than two years for the agency to fix the pipe. NYCHA repaired the pipe shortly after The News published its story.