A 12-year-old student who died after choking at a New York school has been identified as Jacob Medina, as police continue examining whether the tragedy may have been connected to a viral TikTok challenge.
Jacob, a sixth-grader at Sonia Sotomayor Community School in Yonkers, was heading to class Wednesday morning when he began choking in a hallway on what authorities believe may have been a doughnut.
Adults who were nearby responded right away, according to Yonkers Public Schools Superintendent Anibal Soler Jr., who spoke with NBC New York.
“He was actually with an adult when he started to exhibit some of these signs of choking,” Soler Jr. said.
“So immediately there was actually somebody with him and within seconds — probably less than 10 seconds — additional adults came to try to administer emergency life-saving procedures on the young man.”
Despite those efforts, Jacob could not be revived and was pronounced dead after being taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital.
Investigators are now probing whether his death was tied to the popular “One Bite” social media trend, in which users attempt to eat as much as possible in a single bite.
“Anything about a TikTok challenge, anything about witness statements, we are going to investigate,” confirmed Yonkers Police Commissioner Christopher Sapienza.
School officials stressed that they are not certain the internet challenge was involved in the tragedy.
Investigators are looking into Jacob’s health history, including whether he had any allergies.
He started choking just before noon on the fourth-floor hallway and may have bought the doughnut at school as part of a fundraiser, sources told CBS News.
On Thursday evening, flowers and candles were placed in front of the school by family members in tribute to Jacob, who they remembered as a loving boy who cared about his cousins.
“This young man was a bright light in the building,” Soler Jr. said Thursday. “Everybody loved him, everybody knew him. He was energy, he was joy.”
