Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more!
Woman Who Jumped From Roof Of NYC Apartment With 5-Year-Old Daughter In Her Arms Had Been Depressed After Divorce, Mother Says
Oksana Patchin's mother said her daughter had been on medication, but had been trying to wean herself off before she jumped from the roof of a friend's Manhattan apartment Sunday afternoon.
A New York City woman, who gathered her 5-year-old daughter in her arms and leapt from the roof of a 12-story Manhattan apartment building Sunday, had reportedly been depressed following a divorce before the fatal plunge.
Oksana Patchin, 39, leapt from the 53rd St. building Sunday afternoon around 1:40 p.m. with her 5-year-old daughter Olivia Patchin clutched in her arms, according to The New York Post. Both were later pronounced dead at nearby St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital.
New York City Police Det. Denise Moroney also confirmed the identification of the deceased to Oxygen.com.
In the months before her death, Patchin had reportedly been struggling with depression. Her mother, Anna, told The New York Post that her daughter had been prescribed three different drugs after a bitter breakup with her husband over the summer and had been recently trying to wean herself off the medication.
“She was taking less and less,” Anna told the outlet.
Anna did not know exactly what medications her daughter was taking, but described one as being a sleep aid.
She said authorities are planning to conduct an autopsy to determine whether drugs were in her system at the time of her death.
It's also not clear if she had been weaning off the medications with the help of a physician or was attempting it on her own.
The U.S. Food And Drug Administration has said that those taking depressions medications “shouldn’t stop taking medication without talking with your doctor—even if you feel better” and cautioned it could cause serious withdrawal symptoms.
Anna told The Post that it had seemed that “everything was normal” the day her daughter and granddaughter died.
Patchin had woken up at the family’s one-bedroom apartment in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn and “walked the dog and had breakfast with Olivia” before driving into Manhattan with her daughter around noon. They were planning to visit a friend who had a birthday the next day at a 12-story apartment building in Hell’s Kitchen.
The friend had reportedly told Anna after the fatal plunge that while they were there, Olivia had suggested the visit to the roof with her mom.
“They always like to go up to the roof,” Anna said of her daughter, who immigrated from Ukraine about 15 years ago.
Surveillance footage captured Patchin and her daughter on top of the roof Sunday afternoon. Patchin can be seen pacing back and forth before climbing over a safety gate, the New York Post reports. She picked her daughter up and held her in her arms as she jumped from the building.
“It was very, very disturbing,” one tenant, identified only as Brian, told the paper.
Moroney, an NYPD spokesperson, said police were called to the scene at approximately 1:45 p.m. Sunday after receiving a report of “two unconscious” females “lying on the pavement at 540 West 53rd Street.”
Police discovered the women “unconscious and unresponsive with injuries consistent with a fall from an elevated height,” Moroney said.
The victims were taken to Mount Sinai West Hospital where they were pronounced dead.
“The investigation remains ongoing,” Moroney said.
Anna said her daughter had appeared to be doing better before she died and had enrolled Olivia at a Catholic school just a few days earlier.
“She was doing better,” she said. “She was going to the gym. She was healthy."
Patchin’s divorce had been finalized in November, according to The New York Post.
