A 27-year-old paramedic has been charged with manslaughter after the 15-month-old boy he was supposed to be watching drank from a cup of rum and soda before drowning in a bathtub, according to police.
Police said Alex Ciccarelli-Rosa, of Torrington, admitted to putting 15-month-old Evan Standish in a bathtub with water after seeing the child drink some of his alcoholic beverage and left him for a short time before finding him unresponsive and face down in the water.
Ciccarelli-Rosa was charged with second-degree manslaughter, risk of injury to a minor and tampering with evidence in connection with the death of the little boy.
Authorities responded to the home in the 400 block of South Main Street when Evan’s mother called 911 at 10:54 a.m. on June 6 after learning when happened when she arrived home. The little boy was transported to Charlotte Hungerford Hospital, where he later died.
Police said Ciccarelli-Rosa, the mother’s boyfriend at the time, had been entrusted as Evan’s caregiver and never called 911 for help.
Ciccarelli-Rosa admitted to drinking three to four beers and some rum and soda between 7 a.m., when he finished his shift at work as a paramedic, until police arrived. He was off-duty at the time of the drowning, the arrest warrant application says.
Ciccarelli-Rosa’s attorney said Thursday that his client has been in treatment and has not been working with a local ambulance company for several months. He is still licensed as a paramedic, according to online state records.
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Police at the scene reported that Ciccarelli-Rosa smelled of alcohol and he had admitted to drinking. When asked to submit to a blood test, he said he would have marijuana in his system from within the last month, the arrest warrant application says.
The medical examiner's office ruled that Evan’s death was a homicide and he said died of submersion in a tub with blunt injuries to head and acute alcohol intoxication. The toddler’s blood alcohol level was .035 percent and the doctor who performed the autopsy told police evident indicated that the child’s blood alcohol level was higher and was decreasing when he died, according to the arrest warrant application.
Bond for Ciccarelli-Rosa was set at $500,000.
