7-year-old on life support after choking on school lunch in Brooklyn

A 7-year-old girl has been declared brain-dead after she choked on her lunch at school last week in New York. Last Wednesday, Noelia-Lisa Echavarria went skipping off to first grade at PS 250 in Williamsburg. "And I want them to tell me the reason they let my daughter, be like that in the hospital, and nobody coming to tell me", the girl's mother Ana Santiago told WPIX.

Meanwhile, EMT Qwasie Reid, 25, happened to be driving a private ambulance and was stopped at a red light near the school when a teacher and school safety agent ran out crying for help, he told a local ABC affiliate.

Reid says he immediately cleared out the girl's mouth, put an oxygen mask on her, used a defibrillator and started CPR.

The family's attorney David Perecman has several questions surrounding the choking incident.

NBC 4 New York asked the Department of Education how quickly 911 was called and it said the school followed protocol by calling 911 and the girl's parents, but did not offer further explanation. And if that's the case, that means he's the first person to call 911.

Her mother Ana Iris Santiagosaid in tears said that school authorities should have responded early and saved her life.

Santiago said he discovered Noelia lying on the floor of a school hallway, lifeless and covered in blood, surrounded by confused school staffers who wouldn't touch the girl. Still, he told the news station, "I made a vow to save a life".

According to the EMT that tried to help the girl, the school staff had not intervened until he had gotten there and had not tried to give the girl assistance.

Noelia Echavarria's family looks for definitive answers as what she was eating and how it all happened.

"She was already turning blue and that takes awhile", said the medic, Qwasi Reid, who works for Assist Ambulance in Brooklyn. "I cleared the airway".

Reid was working for a company called Assist Ambulance and had been transporting an elderly man in stable condition from an eye clinic to a nursing home.

"Our whole family is in pain and nobody is saying anything", said Santiago. "This is a girl who woke up every morning not wanting to miss a day of school", the girl's uncle told the New York Daily News.