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Controversy # 2
Short Falls Don't Kill Children
The third prong of the SBS triad is a history inconsistent with the degree
of damage seen in the baby upon hospital admission. This prong relies
on the belief that short falls do not kill children. Prosecutors and child
abuse advocates argue that the amount or degree of injuries found on the
baby at admission, cannot have been incurred through accidental trauma
or a short fall. At trial, The State's experts generally testify that
the force needed to cause the type of injuries seen in these babies is
akin to that of a 35 mph unrestrained motor vehicle accident or a 2-3
story fall.
These commonly held assumptions are factually incorrect and are disputed
by the biomechanical and medical literature on short falls and by cases
observed in the legal literature. There is ample scientific evidence within
the biomechanics literature, that a short fall with rotational components
produces a greater degree of force at impact than a transnational fall
or a motor vehicle accident. The Medical literature on short falls shows
us that the combination of retinal hemorrhage and subdural hematoma can
be found in accidental as well as intentional traumas.
A recent study by John Plunkett (1) analyzed the Consumer Product Safety
Commission's database on playground equipment falls, between Jan. 1988
and June 1999. In this study there were 18 deaths from falls of less than
10 feet. Thirteen of the children had subdural hematomas, and twelve had
lucid intervals ranging from five minutes to forty-eight hours. Four of
the six that had fundoscope examinations had retinal hemorrhages. The
article is seminal in the study of childhood head injuries because it
supports many of the previous studies on short falls (2) and refutes some
of the most fundamental assumptions upon which SBS cases have been charged
and convicted.
There is a case of a short fall death in a hospital from the civil law
literature out of Roanoke, Virginia. In this case, the baby falls off
of a changing table while in the hospital and dies of a subdural hematoma.
The case has been widely publicized do to the wrongful death lawsuit against
the hospital for their negligence.
| Fatal fall
from a Hospital changing table Page 1 of 1 Fatal fall from a Hospital changing table HEADLINE: ROANOKE HOSPITAL SETTLES LAWSUIT IN INFANT'S DEATH Published: Sunday, September 18, 1994 Section: Local Page: B2 BYLINE: The Associated Press TEXT: A hospital has settled a lawsuit filed by the mother of a newborn girl who died seven months after falling from a nursery table Roanoke Memorial Hospital agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to settle the $1 million medical malpractice lawsuit. The lawsuit stemmed from a July 8, 1991, accident that happened just 24 hours after the birth of Mary KatherineYengst. A nurse working in the intensive care nursery had just taken the infant from her crib and placed her on a scale on a nearby table. When the nurse turned her back to change the linens in the crib, the infant fell about three feet from the scale to a tile floor, Frith said. The child suffered what the lawsuit described as ``serious and permanent'' head injuries.
Copyright. MediaStream, Inc., a Knight-Ridder Inc. company. |
Additionally, the theory that says that children don't die from short falls, assumes that those children do not posses any intervening factors that would make the child particularly more fragile than other children. There are many underlying medical conditions that can lessen the degree of force necessary to cause the injuries found in "SBS" cases. Infants should be screened for old or chronic subdural hematomas, internal or external hydrocephalus, coagulation or metabolic disorders, or conditions that produce increased vascular permeability. Children with any of these underlying medical conditions are more likely to suffer greater neurological consequences from minor traumas than are children who are otherwise un-compromised.
Citations
1. Plunkett, John. Fatal pediatric head injuries caused by short distance
falls. American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology 2001; 22, No.
1-12.
2. Gurdjian, E.S.,
Roberts, V.L., and Thomas, L.M. Tolerance curves of acceleration and interracial
pressure and protective index of experimental head injuries. The Journal
of Trauma 1966 6(5): 600-604.
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