ABC producer Dax Tejera looked so ill before he died a waiter checked on him ... trends now

ABC producer Dax Tejera looked so ill before he died a waiter checked on him ... trends now
ABC producer Dax Tejera looked so ill before he died a waiter checked on him ... trends now

ABC producer Dax Tejera looked so ill before he died a waiter checked on him ... trends now

ABC news producer Dax Tejera had looked so ill in the moments before he died outside a Bobby Van's steakhouse that a waiter checked on him.

Tejera, 37, died at the restaurant two days before Christmas while spending the holidays in New York City with his family.

His bosses at ABC previously attributed his death to a heart attack, but a medical examiner has since told DailyMail.com he choked on food because he was intoxicated.

Staff at the expensive eatery now say he was looking ill shortly into his meal that a waiter asked him, 'Are you OK, sir?' before he collapsed outside.

Just a few hours after his death, his wife, Veronica Tejera, was arrested on child endangerment charges after it emerged the couple had left their children, aged two years old and five months old, in their hotel room. 

ABC News producer Dax Tejera is said to have looked so ill shortly into his meal at a Manhattan steakhouse on December 22 that a waiter went to check on him

ABC News producer Dax Tejera is said to have looked so ill shortly into his meal at a Manhattan steakhouse on December 22 that a waiter went to check on him

It was just two days before Christmas when the Tejera family was in New York celebrating the holidays and had plans to visit friends and go to Rockefeller Center

Tejera and his wife, Veronica, pictured together, were out for dinner in New York City while their children were left alone at the Yale Club

At the restaurant, a staff member recalled that Tejera seemed unwell shortly into the meal, prompting a server to check on him.

'So before anyone ate, just after the server brought the orders, he asked, "Are you OK, sir?"' the staffer told the New York Post.

At that point, he said, the inebriated producer '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,' the unnamed employee told the Post.

'It was terrible, and a terrible shame they left little, little children alone like that.' 

Tejera's official cause of death was given as: 'Asphyxia due to obstruction of airway by food bolus complicating acute alcohol intoxication.' 

News of his death was first shared by ABC News President Kim Godwin, who said Tejera 'died suddenly of a heart attack'. 

The producer had collapsed and was rushed to Bellevue Hospital after the incident but pronounced dead on arrival.

Veronica, 33, had traveled in the ambulance with her husband, while the couple's friends went to the Yale Club to collect the children.

But Yale Club staff called police at around 11pm, after they discovered the children had been left unattended for at least two hours.

Veronica was arrested by the NYPD at around 12.20am and charged with two counts of 'acting in a manner injurious to a child'. The children, who were unharmed, were left with their grandmother.

Dax Tejera, pictured with his children and wife Veronica, died on December 23 after he choked at a Manhattan steakhouse. Veronica was arrested after it emerged the couple had left their daughters, aged two years old and five months old, alone in a hotel room while they had dinner

Dax Tejera, pictured with his children and wife Veronica, died on December 23 after he choked at a Manhattan steakhouse. Veronica was arrested after it emerged the couple had left their daughters, aged two years old and five months old, alone in a hotel room while they had dinner

Bobby Van's at 230 Park Avenue

Dax Tejera and his wife, Veronica, in 2018

The couple left their daughters alone for at least two hours while they enjoyed dinner at Bobby Van's Steakhouse at 230 Park Avenue, in Manhattan, about a block away from the Yale Club. Pictured left: the entrance to the steakhouse. Pictured right: Dax and Veronica in 2018

Veronica was released from custody shortly after 4am. She has admitted it was a 'poor decision' to leave their daughters on their own. 

Police said the children were 'left alone inside of a hotel room for an extended period of time'. Veronica, a senior producer at the Washington Post, has insisted the couple 'had two cameras trained' on the children as they

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