We got the panicked call from the ER greeter - "There's a mom here with her baby and it's having trouble breathing - I think you better get right out here."
Our greeters are a very seasoned bunch and tend to not overstate things so we went right out there. Mom was about 20 and crying holding a limp, gray, grunting infant. I just grabbed the baby right out of her arms and headed to the 'crash' room without even looking to see if she was following. As I ran by the nurses station I yelled for help.
Not only was she not breathing well she was having some sort of seizure activity. Like a well oiled machine the team swung into action. One nurse started assisting respiration's with an ambu bag while another searched for an IV site, a third put on the monitor leads which showed a HR of 210 and a pulse ox of 79%. Cap refill was delayed and the abdomen was hard as a rock.
"What happened?" the doctor asked the mom, who was hovering in the doorway.
She came home from work and found the baby like this, dad had been home with the child. She was a normal healthy child but had been suffering from colic and was fussy.
Hearing this story a sick suspicion entered all of our minds. This baby had probably been beaten. We quickly intubated and started some fluid resuscitation then rushed off to CT scan. As we scanned the pictures coming up on the screen told the devastating story, traumatic sub-arachnoid hemorrhage and ruptured spleen spoke of violent shaking and violent blunt trauma to the abdomen - probably from being punched.
The baby was whisked off to surgery to remove the spleen. She survived the surgery but the neurologic damage was too great and the family elected to remove life support three days later. She was 3 months old.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
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28 comments:
oh my god.
i feel sick.
This made me sick to my stomach. People can be so disgusting.
I'm in tears now. I had to stifle a yell. Hearing about things like this breaks my heart. I worked in a daycare and adore babies. It boils my blood to think that someone could do this to HIS OWN CHILD!
As a pediatric cardiologist this is an unfortunately all too common story... In a new practice a decade and a half ago, with all the mortality associated with infants with congenital heart defects, our first (and for almost two years our only) death was a patient that killed from child abuse by the father and live-in boyfriemd of the mother.
We had a death recently too It only makes you cherish your own children more. Working on their child makes you feel horrible when you can't save them.
That is so sad.
I remember when i was a student a baby came in with non-accidental injuries. It took me a short while to figure out what exactly that meant. It makes me so angry that someone can do something like that to a tiny, totally defenseless, baby
How sad. This post turned my stomach.
So sad:( Kill the S.O.B.! Sorry, that's my gut reaction.
I hope the S.O.B. rots in jail. I pray the mother gets a clue and gets away from him. All too often, that's not the case...
we have had several cases of abuse from death to severe injury from shaking, hitting, slapping and other violence.
I have never understood how a grown person could not simply issue the self control to put the baby down in a crib or playpen for a few minutes to regain some self control.
String the SOB up by his scrotum and let him swing; beat him every hour, on the hour.
Cover him in honey and hang him upside down over a fire ant hill.
Pull his fingernails off one by one.
THEN, give him to the general prison population and tell them what he did - give them free rein to continue the punishment in whatever way they see fit
This post makes me physically ill. What is wrong with people??
Crimes like these make me long for frontier justice. Gimme some fire ants, a funnel and some honey.
Is the father being prosecuted?
And my question...was it the mother?
Kill the SOB, but do it S-L-O-W-L-Y. Make him suffer.
I'm just sick.
MJ
My son is now three months old, and I'd die if something happened to him. :( That poor little girl. :(
You did a great job of caring for the baby. It is beyond sad that people do not know how to deal with children.
As a pediatrician, this sort of case was always the hardest to deal with. Well... this, and the little girls who came in sexually abused/assaulted. As a parent, I can't imagine ever being that angry or frustrated that I'd even spank my kids, let alone beat them to death. It's incomprehensible to me.
push the potassium with no sedation.
people just do not understand us, until they take care a case or two--especially on christmas-like i did. i will always remember cora.
I am sorry, ERnursey. You must be hurting really bad from that one. I am so very sorry.
What happened to the father?
Oh my goodness. Thats terrible! I hate hearing stories like that. It makes me sick to think someone could harm a child. Makes me want to hug my daughter a little tighter and never let go...
The mother will testify on behalf of the father. By the time the matter goes to trial she will be pregnant by him again.
The jury will conclude that the poor mother/poor father -- been punished enough -- baby had colic -- Who Among Us.
It is only remotely possible that there will be justice.
I agree with you about these. Well someday Ill create a blog to compete you! lolz.
First, we don't know if it was Mom or Dad. Whichever, they need help.
Second, FTR, Mom or step-dad's (statistically) several times more likely to abuse a kid than is bio-Dad.
Third, I've had the "colicky baby." This child literally didn't shut up for more than 15 mins at a time for 7 months. I came very, very (VERY) close to shaking her. You can't imagine the stress if you haven't lived it. I'm not excusing it, just saying I understand how the stress can make you do something you wouldn't otherwise do...
As for me, I put her in her bassinet in the bathroom, shut the door, and went to sleep for ~6 hours -- the first I'd had in ~6 months. Surely not optimal, but beat the alternative -- I needed a break!!
Lastly, I became a "stay-home-dad" because MOM couldn't handle her. She told me flat out "you're going to come home and find a dead baby." I quit my job by phone and did what I had to do.
Child abusers are the lowest form of scum, let's just not assume that all scum is male...
DD
What's worse about these cases in Canada is that withdrawl is delayed, or even unheard of for some cases- when you're not paying to ventilate your loved one with blown pupils who has failed brain death criteria, it becomes a long, drawn out death by pneumonia etc. waaaay down the road. And the toll on the families, while huge, is often pushed aside by the fact that they don't visit, or do basic care. The nurses are the ones forced to do indignities to these bodies in the name of people not ready to face reality. *sigh* What a sad, sad reality that adults can still hurt babies.
As a future nurse can you tell me... How do you deal with stories like this? Just reading this brings tears to my eyes...:(
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