{"id":264330,"date":"2026-06-12T11:49:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T11:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/264330\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T11:49:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T11:49:17","slug":"ny-6th-grader-who-choked-to-death-in-possible-tiktok-challenge-identified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/264330\/","title":{"rendered":"NY 6th grader who choked to death in possible TikTok challenge identified"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 12-year-old boy who <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/06\/11\/us-news\/6th-grader-chokes-to-death-in-ny-school-during-apparent-tiktok-challenge\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">choked to death at a New York school<\/a> has been identified \u2014 as police confirm they are investigating whether his death was tied to a viral TikTok challenge.<\/p>\n<p>Jacob Medina, a 6th-grader at Sonia Sotomayor Community School in Yonkers, was on his way to a class Wednesday morning when he started choking in the hallway on what officials said may have been a doughnut.<\/p>\n<p>Nearby adults immediately jumped in to help, Yonkers Public Schools Superintendent Anibal Soler Jr. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnewyork.com\/westchester\/12-year-old-boy-chokes-to-death-at-ny-school-while-possibly-doing-social-media-challenge\/6512291\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">told NBC New York<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:0.74121094;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39654845\" width=\"437\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/jacob-medina-12-year-old-130681903.jpg\" alt=\"Jacob Medina\" class=\"wp-image-39654845\"  \/>Jacob Medina, 12, choked to death at his school in Yonkers on Wednesday. Courtesy Medina family<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was actually with an adult when he started to exhibit some of these signs of choking,\u201d Soler Jr. said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo immediately there was actually somebody with him and within seconds \u2014 probably less than 10 seconds \u2014 additional adults came to try to administer emergency life-saving procedures on the young man.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>However, they were unable to save him, and Jacob was pronounced dead after being rushed to St. Joseph\u2019s hospital.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators are now probing whether his death was tied to the popular \u201cOne Bite\u201d social media trend, in which users attempt to eat as much as possible in a single bite.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnything about a TikTok challenge, anything about witness statements, we are going to investigate,\u201d confirmed Yonkers Police Commissioner Christopher Sapienza.<\/p>\n<p>School officials stressed that they are not certain the internet challenge was involved in the tragedy.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators are looking into Jacob\u2019s health history, including whether he had any allergies.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.78708551;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39654847\" width=\"1024\" height=\"573\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/12-year-old-boy-choked-130681906.jpg\" alt=\"Sonia Sotomayor Community School \" class=\"wp-image-39654847\"  \/>He began choking in the hallway at Sonia Sotomayor Community School while going to class. WNBC<\/p>\n<p>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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/newyork\/news\/yonkers-student-choking-death-jacob-medina\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">told CBS News<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis young man was a bright light in the building,\u201d Soler Jr. said Thursday. \u201cEverybody loved him, everybody knew him. He was energy, he was joy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 12-year-old boy who choked to death at a New York school has been identified \u2014 as police&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1015,318,57,9,24,55,54,56,5271,9740,58,3048],"class_list":["post-264330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-deaths","tag-freak-accidents","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-schools","tag-tiktok","tag-us-news","tag-yonkers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}