Brooklyn Special needs Student, 21, chokes to Death on Muffin

A 21-year-old special-needs student died after choking on a muffin at her Brooklyn school on Tuesday.

The student, identified as Dyasha Phelps Smith, was eating the muffin in a classroom at the School for International Studies on Baltic St. in Cobble Hill when she began choking. It was not clear if the Heimlich maneuver was performed.

Paramedics rushed her at about 12:15 p.m. to New York Methodist Hospital, where she died, authorities said. Schools officials were investigating.

Smith, of Canarsie, attended the Star Academy, a special education program housed within the School for International Studies.

Her mother, Catherine Smith, 70, adopted the young woman when she was a 3-year-old. Smith was autistic and hyperactive but otherwise healthy, her devastated mother told the Daily News.

“I want to know why my child passed away at the school like that. She was supposed to have one-to-one attention, I want an autopsy,” Catherine, a retired home health aide, said.

“She never choked at my house, how could she choke at school?”

Catherine said the school officials didn’t tell her that Smith was dead. She learned it from the doctors at the hospital. They said the 21-year-old was already gone when she was brought in, the mom said.

“This is negligence ... They would always try to calm her down with food ... I expected to see her alive and I saw my baby dead in a hospital bed,” the heartbroken parent said.

Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña said guidance counselors would be available at the school on Wednesday to “support the community during this tragedy.”

“I am deeply saddened to hear of this loss, and my heart goes out to the student’s family and the entire school community,” Fariña said in a statement.

Her words were no consolation to Catherine.

“She died like a dog. Why would this happen to a child amongst so many qualified people?,” she grieved. “It's total carelessness.