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Buzzed article about a toddler of died of meningitis

2K views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  LiLStar 
#1 ·
#2 ·
i happened across an article that gave the other side of this by pure chance: someone on my friend's list replied with a comment on their friend's posting, who posted an article raking the poor family over the coals. it appeared in my feed, randomly. when I clicked it, fb suggested "also shared..." article that seemed much more balanced! http://vaccineimpact.com/2016/famil...-children-for-not-vaccinating-child-who-died/ It spells out exactly how it went down, and the family seems perfectly responsible from this perspective.

To paraphrase some highlights from the article... his symptoms were up and down. seemed to get better, then would be sick again. but fairly mild, not too concerning symptoms. on the day he really "crashed" he had seemed much better, but when dad checked on him during a nap his breathing patterns were odd.

This is the weirdest part of the article. this doesn't make sense to me at all
While they were trying to figure out what was going on and discussing the possibility of taking him in to the hospital, their son suddenly stopped breathing. Alarmed, David called 911, while Collet administered CPR. He started breathing again, so the parents were instructed to call 911 again if anything changed.
wth? why would 911 be like, "oh, he's breathing again? well, call again if it changes!" seriously? i think once cpr has begun, an ambulance should come. so that doesn't add up. either there's something missing from the story, or the 911 dispatcher made a HUGE mistake. because that is unfathomable.

the family took him to the hospital anyway, immediately, and a 2nd 911 call resulted in arranging for an ambulance to intercept them on the way, as its a 30 min drive.

The most interesting part, to me, is this:

Months later the Stephans learned that, while they were on the phone with 911, they passed "within a few hundred yards of a fully equipped ambulance with 2 local paramedics that were available for dispatch." That team never got a call. Instead, it was about 15 minutes later when they met up with the Cardston ambulance, who took Ezekiel to the hospital with his parents following. During that 15 minutes, Ezekiel was still not breathing on his own.

Ambulance Lacked Necessary Equipment

He was somewhat stabilized when they all reached the hospital in Cardston. The Stephans later learned that the Alberta Health Services (AHS) had not fully equipped the ambulance that Ezekiel rode in. They were missing the intubation tube that he needed. Their son was without oxygen for 8 1/2 minutes during the ambulance ride, but no one told this to the Stephans until much later.
anyway... there's much more than I quoted and its worth a read. the media is focusing on meningitis as though it was a sure thing, but he did not have the symptoms and the autopsy didn't definitively conclude that. So sad, and so scary :( i feel so bad for the family.
 
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