Subject:  Re: Update on Beaumont Hospital case |
Author:
Chris
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Date Posted: 04/16/05 5:20pm
In reply to:
Chris
's message, "Re: Update on Beaumon tHospital case" on 04/14/05 5:46pm
Witness gives emotional description of fire that burned baby
Web-posted Apr 15, 2005
By STEPHEN FRYE
Of The Daily Oakland Press
The fire that badly burned a newborn sounded like a gas grill starting up after being on for a while, a respiratory therapist testified Thursday.
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"(It was) a 'poof' noise," said Carlia Cichon, who was inside William Beaumont Hospital's neo-natal intensive care unit when the fire occurred. "It startled me and then the confusion started."
She was the first witness in the civil trial of Craig and Shelley Laporte, the Macomb Township parents of now-7-year-old Nathan, against William Beaumont Hospital, as the testimony opened Thursday. He was born in a set of quadruplets.
The jury also met, for the first time, Nathan - who appeared in his wheelchair with the breathing machine underneath him. Wearing glasses, his face and forehead still held the scars of the October 1997 flash fire that may have forced him to spend the first two years of his life in a hospital.
The hospital claims that his lung injuries were not caused by the fire, but rather by his being born nearly 16 weeks prematurely. They admit the fire but deny responsibility for the lung damage.
Cichon's testimony was a strong start to the trial for the Laportes' attorney, Geoffrey Fieger.
At the time, she worked as a consultant for William Beaumont Hospital, treating Nathan's three siblings.
Cichon disputed the hospital's claims that Nathan was the weakest of the quadruplets born July 18, 1997.
Under cross examination, Cichon admitted that she did not treat Nathan before the fire, as she was to take over his care after he was moved to his home. But she insisted several times that she monitored his care as a standard practice of following a case she knows she is going to take over.
Cichon said the smoky nature of the neo-natal intensive care unit after the fire was severe enough to affect her and another nurse, both of whom have asthma.
She choked up when she spoke of her concerns for Nathan immediately after the fire.
"It was devastating " she said, pausing as she teared up.
"Because he was so helpless. And he was doing well. Prior to the accident, he was doing well. He was doing better than expected."
Cichon, who later started her own company to provide home care for people with respiratory problems, described to the jury the equipment that Nathan uses to breath.
She got up from the witness stand and pointed out the equipment in Nathan's wheelchair, immediately in front of the jury, giving the four women and four men a good look at the little boy, who has a tube going into his neck.
Cichon said such constant care costs between $30,000 and $40,000 a month, not counting nurses assisting. She said the cost is mostly for the equipment, and it is heightened because the equipment often needs to be upgraded because of the boy's constant growth.
Fieger said earlier that the cost of a lifetime of care for Nathan could reach $278 million.
The trial resumes Tuesday.
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