A city-run apartment building for homeless families has put a Bronx toddler in danger—twice this week. Five days after Dymond Salgado and her family were forced to leave one apartment in their Grand Concourse building because the two-year-old was suffering from lead poisoning, a ceiling collapsed in their new apartment, covering the child in "debris and plaster teeming with water bugs and centipedes."
"I don't want to stay here another day," her father, Ralph Salgado, told the Daily News. "I can't even protect my own family from the unknown, from the invisible here." The ceiling fell at around 9 a.m., as Dymond played ball with her four-year-old brother Donte. "We were in the living room and I heard, 'Bam!'" said her father. "I froze up at first, and then the yell came, which was my daughter. I ran inside and she was covered with rubble and debris."
Dymond escaped the ceiling collapse—which was reportedly caused by a leaky radiator—with only minor injuries. But she and her brother remain on medication after being exposed to lead in their first apartment at 1410 Grand Concourse, and according to WPIX, Donte has "delayed speech" that his mother attributes to the toxic conditions. City officials say they will re-inspect every apartment in the 35-unit building. The Salgado family has been relocated to a Department of Homeless Services building in Morris Heights.
