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800G for her rat hell Landlords settle with bitten girl BY CHRISENA COLEMAN DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Camille Fernandez was standing in her Bronx bathtub in July 2001 when a ratleapt onto her back and bit her. A 3-year-old Bronx girl was standing in the shower when a rat crawled through a broken tile, pounced on her back and sank its teeth into her flesh. The child, Camille Fernandez, wiggled furiously to shake the nasty creature off her back, slipped and hit her head on the bathtub faucet. Four years later, the little girl still suffers seizures and other problems from her encounter with the vicious rodent - and someone is finally going to pay. In the midst of a civil trial, the landlords of the Concourse building agreed to cough up $800,000 yesterday to settle a lawsuit by Camille and her family. "To me, this settlement means that they believed what my daughter and I said was the truth," Camille's teary-eyed mother, Cristina Fernandez, 40, told the Daily News. "Now, I hope more landlords will fix their apartments so people will not have to live in bad conditions," she said. "We are human beings and should not have to live with rodents running around." Camille had just finished a shower, and her mother had stepped away to grab a towel, when the rat jumped at her in July 2001, according to court papers. When her mother walked back in, she found her daughter unconscious from the head blow and the rat still in the tub. Camille's big brother killed the rodent. "Over the course of a week, Cristina noticed that something was wrong with Camille," said the family's lawyer, Jonathan Michaels. "She was not talking, lost control of her bladder and there were behavioral changes." Camille was taken to the hospital and diagnosed with a seizure disorder, rat-phobia, panic disorder and post-traumatic stress, the lawyer said. She still has marks on her lower back, where the rat bit, and developmental and psychological problems that require medication. Fernandez sued, seeking millions in damages. The jury was deliberating when defense lawyer Glenn Richardson offered the settlement on behalf of the landlord, Rosenberg Diamond Development. Richardson declined to comment, but Michaels said the building was infested with rats and management did nothing to help the tenants. "The living conditions in the apartment were horrific," he said. "The environment was unsafe." He said the $800,000 windfall will ensure that Camille and her family, who have since moved away, will have money to pay for future medical bills.
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