February 26, 2006 began like any other day. It was a Saturday and Kate’s scheduled weekend to work as a nursing assistant in a large acute care and rehabilitation hospital. She woke at 6 a.m., dressed, and before leaving the house, kissed her three month old son, Aidan, who lay sleeping in his crib. She told her husband that she was leaving for work and closed the door behind her. What she did not know was that in that split second, her life would be forever changed.
Kate drove to work to begin her day. On her first break, at approximately 9:00am, she called her husband to check on her son, Aidan. Her husband said that Aidan was fine and that their step-daughter, four years old at the time, was playing in the living room. Kate said goodbye to her husband and that she would talk to him later. About an hour later, around 10:30am, the nursing supervisor came into the room where she was helping a patient and told Kate that she had a phone call from her husband. The nursing supervisor told her that her husband sounded scared and that she should take the phone call right away. Her husband would tell her that he had left Aidan and their step-daughter alone in the living room together for a few minutes. When he returned to the living room, he said that Aidan was in a different position and crying. He told her that when he picked up Aidan, Aidan went limp and seemed to stop breathing for a minute. She could hear Aidan in the background. His scream was shrill and high pitched and Kate knew that something was immediately wrong. She told her husband to get Aidan and their step-daughter ready and that she would be home within half an hour.
Kate left work immediately and proceeded home. She called the pediatrician on the way and explained the story that her husband had told me: that he had left the baby on the floor alone with our four year old step-daughter for a few minutes and had left the room, and that when he returned, the baby was in a different position and was screaming. Once at the pediatrician, the doctor came into the room and examined Aidan. Aidan was no longer crying, but the top of his head was beginning to swell. The pediatrician told Kate and her husband that it appeared Aidan was having a cerebral hemmorrhage, or bleeding of his brain, and that the couple needed to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. The doctor also ordered stat x-rays and CAT scans. Once they arrived at the hospital, there was a flurry of activity. Aidan had a CAT scan of his brain and several x-rays and the family was sent to the emergency room, where Aidan had an IV inserted into his arm. The attending physician came into the room and began to explain that Aidan’s brain was bleeding and that his injuries were too severe to be treated in their community hospital. Aidan needed to be transported to a children’s hospital for evaluation. A pediatric trauma team was assembled from the Children’s Hospital at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania and within two hours, Aidan was on his way to the Children’s Hospital.
Kate and her husband returned home to their house and packed for the trip. They arrived at the medical center later that evening. Aidan was laying in a small cradle in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. The physician had fitted him with a neck brace until further radiologic tests could be performed to rule out fracture in his neck or spine. They were not allowed to talk to Aidan because the doctors said that he would recognize their voices and would want to be held. Aidan was also taken off nutrition by mouth, due to the fact that his brain was bleeding and his body was beginning to shut down. Her baby who had been taking over 8 ounces of milk from the bottle that morning now could not even eat on his own. Over the course of the evening, the physicians and interns in the PICU interviewed Kate and her husband and were asked how Aidan has been injured over and over again. A caseworker from the Dauphin County Protective Services unit came to the hospital later that evening to interview the couple. Kate’s husband grew angry at the questioning and she assured him that as long as he stayed calm, everything would be fine. Her worst fears would soon unfold before her eyes.
Between 7p.m. and 11p.m. the couple was told several times by the medical resident that the neurosurgeon wanted to speak to them. The neurosurgeon was still in surgery, however, and her husband was becoming increasingly agitated. He told her that he was hungry and wanted to find a hotel where they could stay for the night. They left for the night and returned back to the hospital in the morning. When the couple returned to the intensive care unit, a nurse ushered them to a computer and explained the radiographs of Aidan’s bones. Aidan had seven fractured ribs and a fractured wrist that were in varying stages of healing. The radiologist later determined that the fractures were seven to ten days old. The nurse stated, “Now we’re really looking at this as a case of abuse.” Once this statement was made, her husband grew immediately tense. He told Kate that he was not going to stay at a hospital if he was going to be accused of abuse and he told her to drive him back to the hotel. After taking him to the hotel, they would make the hour and a half trip back to their hometown and Kate would return to the hospital alone. She begged him to stay with her and tried to convince him not to leave. He cared only that he was being accused of abuse. Kate told the charge nurse in the intensive care unit that they would return later, knowing full well that it was a lie and that she would be returning to the Children’s Hospital by herself.
Aidan was a patient in the Children’s Hospital for twelve days. He had been diagnosed with two brain hemmorhages, in addition to the broken bones that had been found. One brain hemmorhage most likely occurred on the day of the initial visit to the hospital and a previous brain hemmorhage had taken place one to three weeks prior. The neurosurgeon, Dr. Mark Dias, was able to determine this because they had cultured the blood collecting around the brain; some blood was new from the current bleeding and some blood was old, from the previous hemmorhage. Due to the fact that there was so much bleeding in the brain, however, it was difficult to pinpoint the exact date when the first hemmorhage occurred. It was also revealed later that Aidan had two fractures in his lower spine. He has two scars on his spine where those fractures occurred.
In addition, the blood vessels in his retinas had been hemmorhaged, a clinical sign that Aidan had been shaken. Scar tissue had formed on the retina in his right eye, leading to blindness, and the pediatric opthamaologist stated that the disability was permanent. Each morning, the pediatric neurosurgeon would come to the bedside and evaluate Aidan with his team of nurses, medical residents, and specialists. Most days, they would return to drain the blood that was building on his brain with a large catheter needle, sometimes returning to the bedside multiple times throughout the day to repeat the procedure. Dr. Dias could give Kate no guarantees of Aidan’s prognosis. He stated that besides evacuating the blood that was collecting on the brain, there was nothing that he could do to stop the bleeding. He also was unable to tell what damage would be permanent. Dr. Dias told Kate that Aidan could be stable in the hospital, and after returning home, his brain could shrink and he might become permanently disabled. The doctor also was considering placing a shunt in Aidan’s brain to help with the blood that was collecting around his brain. Thankfully, around the tenth day of Aidan’s hospital stay, the bleeding began to subside and it was decided that Aidan could return home.
Aidan and Kate moved out of the house and moved home with her parents. Kate filed for divorce three months later. The next six months were filled with visits to the Children’s Hospital, with follow-up appointments for x-rays, cat scans, bone scans, and meetings with the pediatric neurosurgeon and pediatric opthamologist. Aidan’s head was very swollen, even months after returning home. He also had a deep furrow in his head from where the blood had been evacuated during his hospitalization.
Aidan cried and screamed often, the same high pitched cry that Kate had heard over the phone the day he was injured. Dr. Dias later would tell the family that this cry is a hallmark of brain injury. Aidan did things very slowly and was watched cautiously for signs of any recovery, but also for signs of any delay. Aidan took his first steps at eleven months, on Halloween, one month before his birthday. The blindness in his right eye has since resolved. Kate’s family personally believes in the power of prayer and is grateful for the many friends and family who prayed for Aidan’s life and for his recovery.
Today, Aidan is a healthy and happy child, with some delays. In the first three years following his injuries, Aidan received occupational and speech therapy, worked with an educational therapist on social skills, and was followed by wraparound therapists to address his anger and aggression, controlled by the areas of his brain that had been damaged. The therapists taught Aidan to learn to hold utensils, drink from an open cup, develop social skills, and sit with his classmates. Aidan now only receives speech and educational therapy; he spends four hours three times a week with a special education pre-school classroom.
Kate has used this a traumatic experience as a way to help others. In the months following Aidan’s initial injuries, Kate received support from social workers and therapists who helped her confront the situation and the impact that it had on the family physicially, emotionally, and spiritually. With their assistance, she was able to turn a personal tradegy into a healing experience that allowed her to increase the awareness of shaken baby syndrome in Berks County. She speaks to young parents on ways to avoid losing their temper with a newborn. Kate is pursuing her Master’s Degree in Social Work at Temple University and hopes to continue to give back to families with interventions for difficult children and parenting instruction.
Kate’s ex-husband, Aidan’s father, was tried in the Berks County court system in spring of 2008 on counts of aggravated assault, simple assault, endangering the welfare of a child and endangering the welfare of another person. Because the investigation had been focused solely on him without interviewing any of the other people who had babysat for Aidan, there was not enough evidence to convict him beyond a reasonable doubt and he served less than six months in county prison. He has always maintained that he did not hurt Aidan, and has stated it was either his four year old daughter or one of our caregivers that caused the injuries. The district attorney provided evidence in court that it would have required extreme force to cause the kind of injuries that Aidan had suffered, and that a four year old child would have been unable to cause those kinds of injuries, even if she had picked him up and dropped him.
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