CBS News New York Interview: Investigation underway for young man with autism who died at an adult day program
Justin McCafferty, a 22-year-old who was profoundly autistic and nonverbal, died on April 15th under the care of the Fort Monmouth Day Program in Oceanport, New Jersey.
CBS News New York interviewed Kimberlee McCafferty, Justin’s mother, as well as Daryl Zaslow, the McCafferty family’s attorney and shareholder at Eichen Crutchlow Zaslow LLP.
“I don’t know how to live in a world where my son doesn’t exist in it, because he was my world,” McCafferty said. “He was supposed to be attended [to] at every moment and now he’s dead.”
“This innocent young man fell to his death,” Zaslow said. “It was a good Samaritan that came over and started to resuscitate Justin as he was sitting there alone and in pain.”
Justin was rushed from the facility to a local hospital where he died. The program sent McCafferty to the hospital where she got the terrible news, and police shared some of the details.
“He died from a fall,” McCafferty said. “We answered a few more questions, and then I went home and told my husband, who has Alzheimer’s, that his son had died.”
CBS News reached out to the Fort Monmouth Day Program for comment but received no response. The family intends to file a lawsuit.