More than a month after Dax Tejera collapsed outside a posh Manhattan restaurant, New York City's chief medical officer has revealed his cause of death. The news producer was dining with friends on December 23 when he got up from the table, stumbled outside, and fell to the ground. According to the report released Wednesday, he choked while intoxicated, leading to his death at just 37 years old.
On the evening of his death, Dax and his wife, Veronica Tejera, 33, left their two children unattended in a hotel room at the Yale Club while they went to dinner with friends. Police arrested Veronica just hours after Dax collapsed and charged her with two counts of child endangerment. She has insisted that she is innocent and was monitoring the children.
Dax reportedly looked unwell at dinner.
According to a report from the New York Post, an employee at Bobby Van's 230 Park said Dax Tejera appeared to be unwell soon after the food was served. A server checked on him and asked if he was OK, the staff member told the Post.
When the producer got up from the table, it appeared he was going to the restroom, but instead, he headed to the exit door. The server followed him, and Dax Tejera promptly collapsed outside the restaurant.
At the time, many people assumed he died of a heart attack.
The official report, however, stated Dax died from "asphyxia due to obstruction of airway by food bolus complicating acute alcohol intoxication," the medical examiner’s office confirmed to People. At the time of his death in December, ABC News President Kim Godwin sent a memo to employees stating that he died of a heart attack. It seemed plausible due to his sudden collapse.
Veronica Tejera rushed to the hospital with her husband.
The mother of two asked a friend and a family member to go to the Yale Club to check on her children. She claimed she was monitoring the girls, 2-year-old Sofia, and 5-month-old Ella, with cameras while she and her husband went out for the evening. The hotel would not let the friend into the room and instead contacted police.
The children were found alone.
When police arrived, they found the young girls unattended in the family's hotel room. Veronica Tejera was arrested but insisted she had an eye on the children even though they were not in the same building. She released a statement in an attempt to defend herself.
"When Dax collapsed on December 23, I accompanied him in an ambulance to the hospital. I asked both a close friend and my parents to rush to my children's hotel room to attend to them as I monitored them by camera. The hotel would not allow my friend in and instead called the NYPD," she wrote, according to E! News. "We had two cameras trained on my children as they slept, and I monitored them closely in the time I was away from them. While the girls were unharmed, I realize that it was a poor decision.”
Dax Tejera was a rising star at ABC.
He moved into his position as a producer of This Week with George Stephanopoulos right before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic after spending three years as a senior producer at ABC News, People reported. He turned the program into a Sunday morning success for the network.
"Despite his age, he was already one of the most talented news producers in America," Univision anchor Jorge Ramos told People. "Nothing seemed impossible for him."
