It was a cool mid-winter afternoon when the pager went off and dispatch let me know that a code was in process on a 6-month-old baby that was coming into the emergency room via ambulance. I responded quickly and beat the ambulance to the hospital. When the ambulance arrived, I was waiting with the code team on the curb. The baby was taken quickly to room 2 in the emergency room, and it was left to me to handle the father of the baby, who also arrived in the ambulance.
The father, Ted, was about 23 years old, was wearing pajamas, his hair uncombed, his face unshaved, and was obviously upset over the situation. I took Ted to the private family room and initially I just sat and held Ted while he cursed and raged, striking the wall, the couch, and his leg. After about 10 minutes, Ted made several phone calls to his ‘girlfriend’ (who was at work) and other relatives. One of the doctors came in then and asked Ted for his story.
Ted explained that he had just fed the baby (a boy) and the baby was sleeping and he noticed that he was not breathing. Ted then called for his girlfriend’s mother, who also lived there, to come and help. The family started CPR, 911 was called, and the ambulance arrived. The story seemed simple enough and plausible to me. The doctor left, and I prayed with Ted for God to guide the hands of the doctors and the recovery of his baby. We then discussed Ted’s spiritual journey. Ted was raised Lutheran, but had not been to a Lutheran church in about a decade. During the years away from the Lutheran church, Ted ran away and lived with friends in Louisiana. There he joined and attended a large Pentecostal church with his friends for several years. After a few years in Louisiana, at about 20 years of age, Ted ‘ran away’ again and moved to a large mid-western city. There he had not attended church, but he had fathered two children by two different women. He had been living with the family of the second woman. Ted works at the same restaurant as his girlfriend, on opposite shifts (this is where he met her).
After Ted shared his story, he went through another raging spell that seemed more like a 2-year-old throwing a fit than an adult grieving. I used the analogy that Ted looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a truck on a dark, Maine night. Ted’s wife’s family began arriving, and they provided support with hugs and prayers. Especially present was his girlfriend's mother, who had been in the house during the situation. About this time (I had been with Ted about 45 minutes) I found it convenient to take a break and go see what was going on with the child.
Immediately I knew something was up; there were two uniformed police officers and a hospital security guard posted outside the family room door, two more uniformed police officers were outside the emergency room, and another two posted by room 2, where they still worked on the baby. At least a ½ dozen hospital (it was obvious they had called in the on-call) security guards were mingling around the emergency room. Two plain-clothes detectives were talking to doctors in the center of the emergency room.
When the detectives saw me, they asked me exactly what was said during my time in the family room. After telling them what little I knew, the doctor filled me in on the condition of the child. The child had bruises on his back and legs, signs of old and new injuries, old fractures on x-ray, and evidence that the baby had been raped. The doctors and detectives then asked me to return to the family and continue to provide spiritual care, but to keep my eyes and ears open.
This was a very difficult situation for me. On one hand I was expected (by hospital staff and by myself) to continue to provide good pastoral care, and on the other hand to keep my eyes open for the perpetrator. It seemed to be obvious that the father was guilty, due to the fact that he was alone with the baby at the time he stopped breathing. However, I knew that to provide good pastoral care I would have to hold my feelings in check, even though I knew one member of the family had brutally injured and raped this six-month-old child. I returned to the family and gave them a brief update on the baby (only that the doctors had resuscitated the baby and that the baby was still in grave danger) and then prayed with the family, which by this time numbered more than a dozen people, including the father, mother, and grandparents of the child. After a short time the detectives came and informed the family that they would be doing some routine questioning of the family. One-by-one the family was questioned by the detectives in a separate room.
About an hour later the doctor informed me I could bring the parents and grandparents in to see the baby. This was very traumatic for the family and myself (I knew by this time that the baby would not likely live). The baby lay there so very quiet (on a respirator and with several IVs), a blanket covered all but his face to cover his injuries. We gathered around the baby, and at the request of the family I laid my hands upon his red hair and prayed for God to provide a miracle of healing for the child. I also prayed for God to bring healing to a family that would be devastated by this situation (thinking that I knew more than most of them). Shortly thereafter life-flight from Children’s Hospital arrived and flew the baby downtown. The family and police officers quickly followed in automobiles.
This was a very traumatic case in which good pastoral care was so desperately needed. After everyone had left, I sat in the chaplain’s office for about an hour and cried for a child whose life had been cut short before it had hardly begun. I went home and debriefed with my wife and cried again. The next morning I went and saw my supervisor to talk through some more of the lingering emotion. I have long since learned the value of talking out the pain and death that is encountered in the life of the chaplain. All of this helped, and I was able to continue with my busy schedule that day. At this point I did not know the status of the baby or the results of their investigation.
I wish that I could say that the situation ended there and the horrible memory faded slowly into the background of my mind. However, later that day I heard the breaking news, first on the radio and then from a phone call, that the baby had died and the father had confessed to the assault and murder of his son. Further, the family had admitted that they had witnessed the ongoing abuse of the little baby from his birth. They claimed to be afraid of the perpetrator, and he had kept promising that it would not happen again.
For some reason (probably because the facts of the case could no longer be denied or explained away and the reality of it being in the headlines) this hit me even harder than being there at the time. I called several of the chaplains that I work with each day and told them I needed them now. We met around 6 PM in the conference room, and they allowed me to debrief and have another good cry. Their support and hugs were very helpful. Each one expressed a willingness to accept a phone call day or night if needed. I have had a few more times of tears and grief for the situation since then, but each time I have sought out help from my fellow chaplains and my wife.
For the family and the father of the child, I was able to provide quality pastoral care, even though it was obvious that a very tragic crime had been committed by one of them and witnessed and tolerated by others. I did not let personal feelings and/or an abhorrence to what they had done prevent me from being present for them. My desire is to always be Godly presence for my patients, extending to them the benefit of God’s grace and the offer of Calvary’s mercy.
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