SBS: Oklahoma: Raven Koch, 1, was found unresponsive May 3 at a baby sitter's home

 

Raven Koch, of Davis, was found unresponsive at the home of a baby sitter on May 3 and later died at an Oklahoma City hospital.

 

FROM STAFF REPORTS Oklahoman     October 22, 2011

DAVIS — A child fatally injured while in the care of a baby sitter died from shaken baby syndrome, the state medical examiner reported Friday. The report ruled the child's death a homicide.

Raven Koch, 1, was found unresponsive May 3 at a baby sitter's home in Davis after reportedly being shaken, the report said. Raven initially was taken to Arbuckle Memorial Hospital in Sulphur on the day of the injury. Later that day, she was transferred to OU Medical Center to undergo surgery to treat an acute subdural hematoma. She died May 4.  http://newsok.com/death-of-oklahoma-baby-ruled-a-homicide/article/3615837#ixzz1d29LppVl

A subdural hematoma is a collection of blood outside the brain usually caused by severe head injuries.
Along with the subdural hematoma, Raven was found to have had retinal hemorrhages and a soft tissue hemorrhage in her eyes.
According to the report Raven had no broken bones. Her internal organs, other than her brain, were otherwise healthy and well developed. There were no signs of sexual abuse. The report also said there were no signs of recent vaccinations or reports of an injury by falling.
An obituary published in The Daily Ardmoreite said Raven is survived by her mother, Taryn Koch, of the home, and her father, Derrick Bennett, of Arkansas.
Raven was described as a child with an ever-present smile that brought joy to all who came in contact with her. The obituary said Raven liked to dance, listen to music and play patty-cake.

SBS: Colorado: Rocky Lee Ankney charged with child abuse

DENVER - There is a beautiful cake, hundreds of balloons and a house full of loved ones. It is a celebration, but it is more complicated than most first birthday parties.

Jasmine is 1 year old. Most people did not expect Jasmine to see this day.

"When she was injured, the doctors told us she probably would not survive the week," Jasmine's mom, Jennifer Schutz, said.

Schutz says this birthday is about celebrating survival.

Jasmine's father, Rocky Lee Ankney, is in jail. The Denver District Attorney has charged him with child abuse resulting in serious bodily injury. Prosecutors say he injured Jasmine when she was 8 weeks old.

Schutz was at work as a geriatric nurse when it happened. Denver Police say Ankney did not call 911, but he called his wife claiming he dropped the baby as he got her out of the bathtub.

Detectives and doctors say Jasmine's injuries could not have been caused by a simple fall. Her ribs were broken. Her brain was bruised and bleeding on both sides of her head. She lost her vision.

"You wouldn't think your husband would do it. He quit his job to stay home with her. Nothing about it makes any sense," Schutz said.

She says he had been loving to her 10-year-old daughter and never shown signs of aggression to her.

Shaken baby syndrome is the leading cause of trauma death in children under 2 years old in Colorado. When Schutz started learning more about it, she made a promise to Jasmine to be part of the solution.

She made adult goody bags for everyone at the birthday party. Every guest left with a colorful bag filled with resources and information about shaken baby syndrome. She hopes their friends will join her in helping to protect other children.

Jasmine can't do what other children her age do. She should be close to taking her first steps and saying her first words, but that may be a long ways off, if it happens at all.

It is a big accomplishment in physical therapy for Jasmine to hold her head up for a few seconds. When she does it, her mom and her therapist cheer: "Look at that big girl holding her head up. Good job!"

Leslie Watson is a pediatric physical therapist. She works with Jasmine three days a week. An occupational therapist comes two days a week.

"Jasmine is 1, but she is not even at a 6-month-old level in the way she functions," Watson said.

Schutz says her daughter isn't sitting up or rolling over yet.

"She is trying to, but she isn't. Maybe one day she will," she said.

The "maybe" is the most difficult part. Schutz doesn't know if she'll ever hear her daughter say "Mom."

Watson works with Jasmine on a big pink therapy ball. She says the progress this year has been slow.

"When you have a baby that was born with all the potential to be all that she can be and then have something horrific happen from someone who is supposed to protect her; that is very difficult," Watson said.

Jasmine survived this year. No one knows what the ones ahead will bring, but Schutz knows one thing for certain: She says she and Jasmine will work to prevent child abuse of any kind for as many years as they have together.

http://www.9news.com/dontmiss/197092/630/Mother-of-shaken-baby-Nothing-about-it-makes-any-sense-

SBS: Nebraska: Day care provider Kendra Fritsche charged with child abuse

April 14, 2011  BETSY FRIEDRICH
HOLDREGE — A Holdrege day-care provider has been charged with child abuse of an infant girl.

Kendra Fritsche, 38, was arraigned Tuesday on a Class II felony in Phelps County Court.

 Judge Robert Ide issued a warrant for Fritsche’s arrest Feb. 17 and set her bond at 10 percent of $50,000, or $5,000. The bond ordered that Fritsche have no contact with children other than her own, and she can have no children in her care.

Fritsche was arrested Feb. 18 and now is free on bond.
Court records outline the case against Fritsche:
On Oct. 16, the Nebraska State Patrol was asked by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services to investigate a possible child abuse case involving a 3-month-old girl who had been in her care from Sept. 7 to Oct. 15.
On Oct. 15, Fritsche contacted the girl’s mother saying she was “not acting right and need to go to the Phelps Memorial Health Center Emergency Room.”
The mother then took the girl to her doctor in Kearney, then to Good Samaritan Hospital, where the girl underwent additional tests and a CAT scan the following morning.
The CAT scan revealed the girl had suffered a skull fracture, which medical staff said was most likely not the result of a short fall but probably occurred from a significant blow to the head. A GSH ophthalmologist also examined the girl and said she had multiple retinal hemorrhaging in both eyes, which he concluded was consistent with shaken baby syndrome.
On Oct. 18, the girl was transported via medical helicopter to Omaha Children’s Hospital. That same day, a State Patrol investigator interviewed Fritsche, who said the girl’s injuries may have been caused when she put the girl down into a car seat too hard, and she may have knocked the wind out of the girl.
On Oct. 20, a Children’s Hospital doctor said the girl had suffered two separate trauma events, as determined by an MRI scan. One indicated a three-week-old bleed in the girl’s brain, and the other more current and acute bleed dated to the previous weekend when the girl suffered a left parietal skull fracture.
The doctor told police it was possible to cause the injuries by forcefully putting the child into a car seat. The doctor also said the girl’s injuries could result in learning difficulties later in life as well as temperamental mood changes over her lifetime.
Fritsche’s preliminary hearing was scheduled for 1 p.m. May 23. A Class II felony is punishable by one to 50 years in prison.
http://www.kearneyhub.com/news/local/article_539e79c8-66bf-11e0-a0ee-001cc4c03286.html

SBS: Illinois: Ibrahim Kibayasi tried for 1st degree murder

By Barbara Vitello

Ibrahim Kibayasi insists he never intended to hurt his son, let alone kill him.
“I didn’t want to kill my son,” said the Mount Prospect man, wiping away tears as he testified in his own defense Wednesday to conclude the third day of his first-degree murder trial. “I didn’t bring him into this world to kill him.

 Authorities say Kibayasi, 31, shook 5-month-old Dylan Kibayasi on Sept. 3, 2009, causing a subdural hematoma that resulted in the child’s death several days later.

He testified he was happy to learn in November 2008 that his girlfriend was carrying their son.
“It’s the dream of every man to have a boy,” said Kibayasi, who came to the U.S. from Tanzania in 2002 to attend college in Atlanta. After a year, he testified that he relocated to Illinois and worked at a Bloomingdale nursing home, as a phone technician for Motorola and as a transportation analyst.
Under direct examination from defense attorney Robert Callahan, Kibayasi testified that Dylan had slept fitfully the night of Sept. 2 and had been ill for several days with a slight fever, diarrhea and vomiting. Kibayasi admitted he had a lot on his mind that day and that he “got a little frustrated” with Dylan’s crying.
“I just lost my mind,” said Kibayasi describing how he grabbed the baby and shook him three or four times, saying, “Why are you crying?”
He said he freaked out when Dylan lost consciousness and attempted CPR on the baby. The baby opened his eyes and started crying which Kibayasi said he believed was a good sign. As they drove to the hospital, Dylan appeared to revive, so Kibayasi went instead to pick up his girlfriend, Dylan’s mother, from work. On the way home, Dylan suffered a seizure and was transported by paramedics to Lutheran General Hospital.
Emergency pediatrician Dr. Clifford Spanierman testified that he determined the baby suffered an intracranial injury to the brain consistent with shaken baby syndrome,
“Due to the dramatic onset of symptoms, it appeared to be very recent, within hours,” Spanierman said.
Spanierman further testified that Dylan’s injury would have required “considerable force” and would not have resulted from an infant’s daily activities. However, he added that the baby suffered no skull fracture, neck, spinal cord or soft tissue damage.
Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Mike Clarke minced no words in cross-examining Kibayasi, challenging his claims that he lost his mind and didn’t realize what he was doing at the time.
“You realize now you killed your son,” Clarke said.
“I can’t say I killed him,” said Kibayasi who testified for about one hour. “I didn’t know anything at the time. I didn’t know it would cause his death.”
Under Clark’s cross-examination, Kibayasi admitted he had problems controlling his anger. He also said he didn’t tell his girlfriend because he felt guilty.
“I was in denial. I kept telling myself ‘I didn’t cause this,’” he said.
Kibayasi claimed he didn’t tell paramedics or emergency room physicians about the shaking because he believed they were experts who knew what to do.
“I sit in my jail cell thinking, ‘How did it happen?’ ‘What was I thinking?’” Kibayasi said.
Closing arguments are scheduled for Thursday afternoon at the Rolling Meadows courthouse.

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20110420/news/704209796/#ixzz1KC6OpjLs

Subdural hematoma from non-contact injury

April 13, 2011

By Paula Kelley | paulak@crestviewbulletin.com

The family of a Choctaw High School student who suffered permanent brain injury in 2007 at an after-school fundraiser was awarded nearly $6.9 million.

In March, Cinco Bayou residents Tatiana Abernathy, and her son, Dakota, 18, were awarded the money by First Judicial Circuit Judge Thomas Remington, who issued a summary judgment for the $6.9 million, plus attorney and court fees against Interstate Fire and Casualty Company and the Choctaw Touchdown Club, Inc.

Product liability cases against Funtastic Factory, Inc., and Emerald Coast Entertainment, LLC are still pending.

Dixie Dan Powell, attorney at law with Powell Powell, and Powell, P.A. law firm in Crestview represented the Abernathys in the lawsuit. Powell said the award amount was the third largest in Okaloosa history.

“We were set for a jury trial in February,” Powell said. “But we received the verdict by the judge.”

Attorneys for the defendants appealed Wednesday, which Powell said he expected. The defendants will have to place the $6.9 million into an account, plus 6 percent interest, pending the outcome of the appeal, which is expected to take six to 18 months to complete, Powell said.

In April 2007, Dakota Abernathy, 14 and an eighth grader at Meigs Middle School at the time, was critically injured while playing on an inflatable “bungee run” while attending the First Annual Jellyfish Festival at Choctaw High School’s football stadium.

The school’s Touchdown Club, made up of football patrons, school alumni, players’ parents and family members who want to help the athletic program, was sponsoring the fundraiser.

Dakota Abernathy was strapped into bungee cords and ran to the end of what resembled a bowling alley lane, and was snapped back to his starting place by the cords, his mother, Tatiana Abernathy, said. In the bungee run, the harder the participant strains against the bungee cords, the harder the recoil.

After exiting the bungee run, Dakota Abernathy complained of being dizzy, threw up and went into convulsions.

A medical helicopter transported him from Etheredge Stadium in Fort Walton Beach to Sacred Heart Hospital Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in Pensacola where he underwent emergency surgery to remove a piece of his skull to ease brain swelling and drain blood buildup from a severe subdural hematoma. In a coma, Dakota Abernathy was placed on a ventilator and doctors described it at the time as “shaken baby syndrome multiplied,” Tatiana Abernathy said.

Doctors told her only 5 percent of adults with that type injury survive.

But Dakota did survive, undergoing months of rehabilitation at a hospital in Atlanta. He is now a senior at Choctaw and, with special provisions, will graduate this year.

“My world turned upside down that day,” Tatiana Abernathy said. “I was volunteering at a booth at the festival. Dakota was running around being a 14-year-old and the next thing I knew someone was running up and said Dakota had been hurt.”

The next hours turned into days, weeks and months as he emerged from the coma and slowly progressed to “start all over.”

“He had to learn to swallow, chew and walk; he had to re-learn everything again,” Tatiana Abernathy said. “I brought home a baby in Dakota’s body.”

Although the injury was life changing, Dakota’s life goes on.

“He knew from an early age that he wanted to be an Air Force pilot,” Tatiana Abernathy said. “He loved music, played trumpet in Meig’s jazz band and played in the symphonic band. Within a day he could play any piece of music.”

However, Dakota is no longer capable of pursuing his dream to become a pilot and can no longer play the trumpet.

“He is not the same kid; the one I raised to age 14 is gone,” Tatiana Abernathy said, her voice choking with emotion. “All his friends are going on to do great things after high school graduation and he struggles with the normal things.”

Dakota is self-conscious about himself since the injury and cannot process emotions as he once did, his mother said. He is on several daily medications and sees doctors regularly. His mother works as an accountant and is a single parent. 

“It has been a long journey to get to this place with the lawsuit,” Tatiana Abernathy said. “Our home was almost in foreclosure; life four years later is just still an everyday struggle.

“I am so thankful that Mr. Powell took this case. He treats us like we are members of his family and he has given more to this case than was ever asked of him as a professional. He has worked to make the financial burden of Dakota’s injury and new life doable.”

 “I don’t want Dakota and Tatiana to think for one moment that this is not the fourth quarter and the two-minute warning has just sounded, because it has,” Powell said. “It’s been a long four years for both of them.”

http://www.crestviewbulletin.com/news/awarded-13883-powell-million.html