About that baby who ‘came back to life’ in a hospital morgue: 5 representative reactions
Forensic pathologist watching from afar: “It’s possible that the doctor didn’t have much experience with the ‘warm and dead’ rule for child drowning cases, or that hospital protocols for declaration of death were not followed—or both.”
Here are more takes on the remarkable case of Baby Vincent, the Arizona 18-month-old who was found alive in a hospital morgue five hours after an ER doctor declared him dead by drowning.
“Mercy Gilbert Medical Center is hiding behind patient confidentiality, closing the door to all public inquiry.
What the community should get instead is transparency and full disclosure. ... Instead of even trying, the hospital just calls it ‘a heartbreaking situation.’ But it didn’t have to be—and it’s not enough to refuse to explain what made it so.”
— Judy Melinek, MD, American forensic pathologist in New Zealand and co-author of Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies and the Making of a Medical Examiner
“You can’t just dismiss signs of life.
It’s this kind of dismissive arrogance that I really could have affected the child’s outcome, because he probably needed more resuscitation, more oxygen.”
— Josef Witt-Doerring, MD, founding psychiatrist and CEO at TaperClinic
“[D]ecades ago, I went to EHS for an annual exam that included an EKG.
The tech applied the pads, pushed some buttons on the machine, waited, then took off the pads, reapplied them, and pushed the buttons again. A minute later she said, ‘The first time, it said you were dead.’”
— Susanna Levin, NP, research clinician at Montefiore Medical Center
“According to the family’s attorney, the child’s parents plan to take legal action against the doctor and Dignity Health.
Prosecutors are also reviewing the case to determine whether the parents could face child abuse charges.”
— Micaela Marshall, reporter with Arizona’s Family/AZFamily.com
“The parents are to blame for the baby [nearly] drowning.
And that so-called doctor needs be fired and take his ego with him on the way out.”
— Anonymous online commentator
Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.