By Marco Poggio and Reuven Blau
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — An 11-year-old boy who appears to have died from an allergic reaction to the smell of cooking fish used his last breaths to comfort his beloved father.
“He told me, ‘Daddy, I love you. I love you,’” recalled Camron Jean-Pierre’s heartbroken father, Steven. “He gave me two kisses.”
Jean-Pierre desperately tried to save his son as he struggled to breathe at his grandmother’s home on E. 82nd St. near Flatlands Ave. in Canarsie, Brooklyn, on Tuesday just before 7:25 p.m.
The youngster used a nebulizer, for his asthma, but it didn’t help.
“I don’t know, for some reason he was saying it wasn’t working,” Jean-Pierre said through tears. “He kept telling me, ‘I’m not able to breathe.’”
Jean-Pierre then called 911. Camron lost consciousness before an ambulance arrived.
“It felt like he had no pulse,” Jean-Pierre said. “I tried to give him the CPR and he came back but I wish I knew (how) to keep pumping him because he woke up and I felt his heart and everything. But I stopped and sat him up to make him feel better.”
EMS raced Camron to Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center, where doctors were unable to save him.
The sixth-grader had a history of “little panic attacks” and suffered from asthma, said Jean-Pierre, standing outside the Canarsie home Tuesday afternoon.
His grandmother was hosting a New Year’s family party when the tragedy occurred. Camron became ill shortly after walking inside the home — and the family suspects protein particles in the air caused the fatal reaction.
Jean-Pierre said he always made sure to keep fish away from Camron due to his allergy.
“We knew he had an allergy… but usually, he don’t get nothing that severe like that,” he said. “He don’t eat fish. We don’t put it around him. It just so happens they was cooking it when we came in.”
“That was my prince, man,” he added. “He was my everything. Everything.”
Camron attended Theodore Schor Middle School in Piscataway, N.J., where he “made everyone around him happy,” Jean-Pierre said.
“Everybody gravitated to my son,” he said. “He was a leader. He had ambition.”
When Cameron turned 11 on Nov. 19, his dad made a video collage using a series of photos on his phone.
“Who knew it was going to be the last video I made of Camron? Who knew that?” he said, tears streaming down his face.
Camron loved playing sports, and was a wide receiver for the Brooklyn Skyhawks and played basketball for the Flatbush Youth Association.
Neighbors said the youngster and his dad were always together.
“He was a very good father. Anywhere you see him, you see the son,” said Marlin Fraser, 47, who lived next door to the family before they moved to Piscataway about two years ago.
Camron was a “very respectful child” who would always say hello when he walked past, she said.
“He was a very nice child,” she added. “It’s shocking for us.”
Copyright 2019 New York Daily News