Horrific

Paramedics arrived at a Hyde Park residence and found a 13 year old girl who was suffering from an infection after trying to pierce her belly button. She was wearing a diaper, weighed 75 pounds and had no detectable blood pressure and was near death.

Deborah Robinson didn’t call a doctor, prosecutors said yesterday, when her daughter botched an attempt to pierce her own belly button and a life-threatening infection set in. She didn’t call one when the girl, in excruciating pain, took to the living room couch three weeks ago and basically stopped eating or moving, prosecutors said. And she didn’t call when her daughter lost control of her bowels; instead, prosecutors say, Robinson put her 13-year-old in diapers.

Robinson told a court psychologist yesterday that she was afraid that a doctor would sexually abuse her daughter. The 38-year-old Hyde Park resident, charged Saturday with child neglect after paramedics found her daughter emaciated and near death last week, was ordered held without bail yesterday until a more complete psychiatric evaluation is conducted to determine whether she is competent to stand trial.

[snip]

Last week, paramedics found her daughter, a tall girl wasted away to about 75 pounds, lying on the living room couch wearing a diaper, despondent, and with no detectable blood pressure. Doctors diagnosed her with sepsis, a bloodstream infection that would have caused ”incredible pain” within 24 hours of onset. Deakin said she could have been sick for as long as four weeks.

Police searched the family’s Garfield Avenue townhouse and found more diapers that Robinson said she bought for her daughter to wear and to soak up fluids oozing from her belly, Deakin said. Robinson told police that she was doing the best she could to take care of the girl at home. ”She indicated she doesn’t believe in doctors,” Deakin said.

Words fail me.

FILED UNDER: Uncategorized
Steve Verdon
About Steve Verdon
Steve has a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and attended graduate school at The George Washington University, leaving school shortly before staring work on his dissertation when his first child was born. He works in the energy industry and prior to that worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Division of Price Index and Number Research. He joined the staff at OTB in November 2004.

Comments

  1. Cricket says:

    Me too. But since I have not been shy about
    expressing an opinion, I will say that appallingly
    stupid, idiotic and dangerous that woman is.

    I hope her daughter recovers and doesn’t make that
    mistake again. It is a miracle that she survived
    this long.

  2. Demosophist says:

    Distrust of the medical profession is instilled in most Christian Scientists, but I doubt that many would let things go that far unless they were unbalanced. Nonetheless CS probably qualifies as a cult. I grew up in a family that was partly CS and no one seemed to be too concerned when my cousin, a fellow who had won two Emmies for producing a well known cartoon series, died of something that no one ever bothered to name. I still can’t get an answer from anyone about what his symtoms were, other than the fact that he became very weak. Heart failure? A bowel infection. A nervous disorder? Diabetes?

    On the other hand I have a sister who was cured of a fully diagnosed and biopsied stage 2 melanoma. It just “went away.” Go figure.

  3. ICallMasICM says:

    D –

    I didn’t see where the so called mother was a Christian Scientist. She just seems to be paranoid.

  4. Mark says:

    Can you provide a link to the story, please?

  5. McGehee says:

    Can you provide a link to the story, please?

    Here.

  6. Steve Verdon says:

    Thanks McGehee, I thought I included the link, but with stories like these I always do them fast since James has beaten me in the past.

  7. wavemaker says:

    From my friend in the DA’s office, the mother is quite apparently delusional, paranoid and not capable of understanding the nature or consequences of her actions.

    A horrid story still, but this is why there is the insanity defense.

  8. earl says:

    I bet this is the liberals fault, somehow.

  9. Ted Williams says:

    What brought the Paramedics to the house… does anyone know?

  10. ICallMasICM says:

    ‘What brought the Paramedics to the house… does anyone know?’

    An ambulence