Infant Dies Two Days Before Christmas After Reportedly Being Dropped by Babysitter

A 3-month-old New Jersey boy has reportedly died after a babysitter accidentally dropped the infant earlier this week.

Mark Modzelewski and Nicole Nicastro took their only child, Reece Modzelewski, off of life support on Friday, and the infant died just minutes later, NJ.com reports.

Modzelewski, 32, wrote of the death in a Facebook post on Friday: “A lot of people have had children in the past few months and I was kinda hoping that Reece would be able to meet them, play with them and go to school with some of them over the upcoming years, but that won’t be possible anymore.”

Little Reece had been hospitalized since Tuesday after the accident, NJ.com reports. He was in the care of a family member when officers arrived to the Saddle Brook home and found the boy unresponsive.

The babysitter told officers that Reece “accidentally fell from her arms and hit the floor with his head,” Saddle Brook Police Chief Robert Kugler told NJ.com.

Police and emergency medical officials unsuccessfully performed CPR on the child, according to NJ.com. He was taken to Hackensack University Medical Center and placed on life support.

The identity of the babysitter has not been made public. It is unclear whether she will face criminal charges as a result of the incident.

A friend of the family, Benjamin DiFranco, created a GoFundMe page for the grieving family. He noted on the site that had Reece survived after being taken off of life support, he would “have no quality of life; not being able to walk, talk or function on his own.”

He called the parents’ choice to remove the infant from life support “one of the hardest [decisions] anyone will ever have to make.”

The day before the baby’s death, Modzelewski penned a moving Facebook post about the situation.

“My little baby boy is dying and there’s nothing I can do to help or comfort him,” he wrote. “I don’t know if he can hear, see, taste or touch anymore. My hear has been torn out of my chest.”

The Saddle Brook Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from PEOPLE

This article originally appeared on People.com