An ABC producer choked to death while drunk. Dax Tejera, 37, died on December 23 while eating with his wife at an upmarket restaurant in Midtown, New York.
Although at first, ABC News President Kim Godwin claimed that Tejera had "passed away suddenly of a heart attack". Two months later, the story is different. The Daily Mail revealed on Wednesday what caused his death. As confirmed by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York, the producer died of "asphyxia due to obstruction of the airway by a food bolus complicating acute alcohol intoxication."
What happened the night of Dax Tejera's death?
That night, he and his wife Veronica decided to dine out at Bobby Van's steakhouse. While doing so, they left their daughters, ages 5 months and 2 years, alone in a hotel room at the Yale Club. That decision led to the arrest of his wife after Dax Tejera collapsed.
She was accused of endangering her little girls,however, she denied the charges, claiming that she had made sure her daughters were being watched. She claimed, as recounted by The New York Post, that she took her husband to the hospital and asked her parents and a close friend to take care of her girls. In addition, she explained, she was monitoring them with a surveillance camera.
However, the version of the employees of the hotel where the girls were is different. They found out that the little ones were alone and, according to what she herself recounted in a statement, they proceeded to notify the authorities: "The hotel would not allow my friend in and instead called the NYPD."
An employee at Bobby Van's steakhouse also disclosed that it happened during dinner. According to The Post, the former executive producer of This Week with George Stephanopoulos, appeared ill shortly before collapsing:
So, before anyone ate, just after the server brought the orders, he asked, "Are you ok, sir?" He got up and started walking like he was going to the men’s room, but he made a right instead and went out the front door and the server followed him outside. The server said that he collapsed in the corner, right here outside the restaurant.
