A San Francisco family is grieving and city authorities are investigating after a 3-month-old baby died after being dropped off at daycare near the family’s Bayview neighborhood home.
“My baby was so happy. Nothing was wrong with her. She was so healthy,” cried Gwenisha Terrell, a city bus driver, in an interview after her daughter, Cya, died Friday. “I don’t even know how she passed away.”
Terrell said she was cooking breakfast Friday morning, excited to celebrate her older daughter’s second birthday, when her phone rang.
She had dropped off both girls three hours earlier. She said the daycare operator’s daughter frantically explained that Cya had stopped breathing after choking on milk.
Terrell and her husband, Cecil, raced to Mama Nida’s Loving Arms Childcare five minutes away to find first responders struggling to find the baby’s pulse. Cya was declared dead a short time later at a hospital.
Cya Terrell died Friday at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco after an incident at her daycare. The city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is investigating the death. (Provided by Denise Bradford)
Reached by phone Saturday, the operator of Mama Nida’s, Anita Saulny-Green, did not respond when asked by a Chronicle reporter what had happened.
“No, I cannot do that,” an emotional Saulny-Green said before hanging up.
The city Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is investigating the death, but declined to comment on it. San Francisco police said officers were called to the hospital after the death to investigate. “At this time there is no evidence of foul play,” said officer Robert Rueca.
Fire Department Lt. Mariano Elias said his agency responded to a 911 call at 11:18 a.m. Friday for a child not breathing at the daycare on the 1500 block of Kirkwood Avenue.
He said dispatchers gave directions over the phone to civilians at the scene on how to administer lifesaving efforts. The baby was taken to UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco, where she was pronounced dead.
Cya was born April 4. Her mother said she took maternity leave in December in her final months of pregnancy and took additional bonding time off after the birth, returning to work shortly after July 4.
Gwenisha Terrell lies in bed with her two daughters, Cia, 2, and Cya, 3-months-old. (Provided by Denise Bradford)
Gwenisha Terrell grieves over the death of her 3-month-old daughter, Cya, while embraced by her cousin Zuri Dobie at their home in San Francisco on Sunday. (Brontë Wittpenn/S.F. Chronicle)
Saulny-Green had watched Cya in the past, Gwenisha Terrell said, but Friday was the first time the Terrells had paid to drop her off at the daycare.
“I trusted her with both of my kids,” she said.
Terrell said she dropped off Cya and her sister, Cia, around 8 a.m., handing Cya over while she was still resting in her car seat. She made her goodbyes fast to keep her kids from getting upset. She said Cya was awake when she left.
Terrell said she dropped off milk, but that Mama Nida’s provided the bottles. She planned to return Friday afternoon to sing happy birthday to Cia at the daycare.
She estimated that Mama Nida’s typically cared for seven or eight children. Saulny-Green and her daughter were the only two employees, she said.
The daycare is licensed and has been issued no citations, California Department of Social Services records show. In 2024, Mama Nida’s received two complaints, but all three allegations in the complaints were found unsubstantiated.
On Sunday, the two-story blue Victorian-style house sat quiet, toys strewn out front, including multicolored plastic chairs and a toddler basketball hoop.
Mama Nida’s Loving Arms Childcare can be seen in San Francisco on Sunday. Gwenisha Terrell was returning to work as a Muni bus driver from maternity leave when she dropped her daughter off at the daycare Friday morning. (Brontë Wittpenn/S.F. Chronicle)
On Friday, Terrell said, the scene was more frantic. She and her husband arrived amid a flurry of activity.
“I just panicked and my heart stopped,” the mother sobbed. “She was just lifeless. Her mouth foaming and it hurt me so bad. My heart hurt. I can’t believe it. I just had her.”
The parents rode in the ambulance with their daughter and paramedics. Terrell called her mother, Denise Bradford, to tell her what was happening. Bradford chased the ambulance in her car, following it through red lights.
“It was CPR, meds, CPR, meds, CPR, CPR, CPR,” Bradford said. “They came to the conclusion they couldn’t try any more.”
She said a doctor told her the little girl had no oxygen to her brain for 30 minutes.
“My baby is gone!” the grandmother said Sunday, crying. “She’s gone! She’s gone! She’s gone!”
Cecil Terrell III embraces his mother-in-law, Denise Bradford, as she grieves over the death of her 3-month-old granddaughter, Cya, at their home in San Francisco on Sunday. (Brontë Wittpenn/S.F. Chronicle)
Bradford said she later returned to the daycare and tried to ask what had happened, but found that police investigators were busy surveying the facility. The family launched an online fundraising campaign to raise money for a funeral, lost wages and counseling.
After the family left the hospital Friday, they returned home. Older sister Cia clung to her father’s leg, as her parents decided whether to still celebrate her birthday.
The family gathered at the dining room table and brought out a white birthday cake, adorned with pink flowers and “Happy Birthday Cia” in white frosting. Pink and white beads in a braided ponytail fell over Cia’s eyes, as she lay her head on her father’s chest. The family had no time to buy candles, so they lit two lighters.
The Terrells, along with family and friends, sang “Happy Birthday.” Cia looked out at her friends and family, shrinking into her father’s shoulder. She didn’t blow out the two flames.
On Friday, the family held a somber celebration for Cia’s second birthday, just hours after her younger sister Cya died following an incident at a San Francisco daycare. (Provided by Denise Bradford)
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This article originally published at ‘My baby is gone’: S.F. family grieves death of 3-month-old girl at daycare as authorities investigate.