Chase, the Bad Baby: A Legal and Medical Thriller (Thaddeus Murfee Legal Thriller Series Book 4) Read online

  Chase, the Bad Baby

  John Ellsworth

  Subjudica House

  Contents

  Foreword

  Copyright

  Also by John Ellsworth

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by John Ellsworth

  Afterword

  Foreword

  Bad baby.

  That’s the horrendous label that some birth defect lawyers and some doctors call babies that have been injured in childbirth. It is used in this book not because Chase Staples is a bad baby in the ordinary sense of the word, but because he is a “bad baby” as some of those in the baby industry might call him. As the author and creator, Chase Staples is my most beloved character I have ever created. He and those like him are precious.

  If this book helps prevent what happened to Chase from happening out in the world even one time, then the pain I have felt for him will have been worth it a thousand fold.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the by-product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by John Ellsworth

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Also by John Ellsworth

  The Defendants

  Beyond a Reasonable Death

  Attorney at Large

  Chase, the Bad Baby

  Defending Turquoise

  The Mental Case

  Unspeakable Prayers (Jan. 2015)

  NEW BOOK NOTIFICATION:

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  —John Ellsworth

  For all the Chase babies

  For all their caregivers

  1

  He wrestled the baby’s head free of the womb.

  Suction, suction again. Was it even breathing?

  With great urgency he freed the torso and limbs, the sucking sound of the sac giving way as the doctor lifted the baby free. A silent pause as he watched the chest. Was it even breathing? he wondered again. The baby lay limp in his hands, heavily jaundiced, as orange as the sun his first grader had painted in his refrigerator artwork. Would this baby ever paint a picture?

  Then the neonatal team was swooping in, wresting the infant away, suction and more suction, a rush to the NICU, thankfully out of sight.

  The doctor swallowed hard and fought to avoid eyes as the mother swam toward him through the anesthesia. She knew the caesarean had come late. He could see terror on her face, narcoleptic though she was. “My baby?” she said. “How is my baby?” Shocky, the doctor opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out. He had been in this situation one other time, and he had been sued. Soon—one day soon—it would happen again, because of this. A man would come to the door, ask his name, and hand him the court papers. Then he would have to explain all this. He swallowed again, fighting down the bile of the raw truth. Which was, there was no explanation.

  Outside the Hudd Family Hospital, clouds were tumbling by, angry and low. Chicago snow was blasting sideways, and the rush-hour traffic snarled and buckled on the Dan Ryan, the Kennedy, the Edens. It was the perfect backdrop for a newborn baby to be injured beyond repair. And for a negligent hospital and doctor to work magic. Magic that made them innocent. Magic made from doctor’s reports, fetal heart strips, nurses’ notes, and C-sections.

  In the end, the medical providers would point the finger of blame elsewhere. After all, there would be a lawsuit, this they knew beyond all doubt. There would be fifty million dollars to pay if the baby’s lawyers won. A conspiracy would rise up within hours of the catastrophic birth. Preparation for the inevitable lawyer feeding-frenzy couldn’t begin soon enough. There was blood in the water. The game was definitely on.

  The first records were shipped to the Special Claims Unit before mother and child were discharged.

  The SCU receiving clerk opened the file on the Unit’s network. Chase Staples, it said.

  Chase, the Bad Baby.

  2

  Only minutes away from Lake Michigan, the Emergency Department at Hudd Family Hospital provided for 100 percent of the urgent health needs inside the Chicago Loop. The ER department cared for nearly 75,000 patients each year, including serious injuries, as a Level 1 Trauma Center. The walk-in entrance opened onto a busy Chicago sidewalk. Rich or poor, if it was urgent and you were downtown, you wound up at Hudd. Its entrance had once been used for the popular TV series ER.

  Inside Delivery Room 404, Chase Staples was struggling. He was stuck in mama’s pelvic girdle. At the worst possible moment, the umbilical cord had coiled itself around the unborn child’s neck. With each contraction the cord tightened and completely shut off blood flow until releasing its grip. Only then would it allow oxygen into the baby’s starving brain. The staff attending the birth had seen this case many times before. The results were almost always tragic. Unless there was a doctor present who knew what to do. With appropriate case management by an OB doctor, the babies emerged without injury. But Chase’s doctor hadn’t arrived at the hospital during those minutes when the case was begging for proper management. Still, Chase was viable and without injury, though he found the womb hot and suffocating. His lungs maintained a stasis with the liquid inside Mama’s womb, while his birth instinct fought to engage with the canal, to maintain oxygen to the brain, and to enter the world. It was all anyone could want.
A fair chance at a new life.

  Nurse Andrea Mounce shook her head. Latoya Staples, the birth mother, was poor and black. Not the best status for top-notch health care, Nurse Andrea knew. She watched as her patient’s hips shot upward. Latoya Staples was in mid-contraction.

  Her fists were balled, knuckles white, and her back arched against the battle rampant in her mid-section. She was twenty-six but right then would have passed for forty-five, by the pain lines on the face. A “gravida 3, para 2,”—three pregnancies, two births—she was expending everything she had for this baby.

  In her chart it was noted that she had two other children, ages four and two, and that her husband, John, was ten years her senior and drove a Chicago tour bus for Blueline Tours.

  Latoya was a graduate of Roosevelt University with a degree in early childhood education. She had taught pre-school in Chicago when her own kids were in attendance. Teaching allowed her to do one thing that she loved more than anything: mothering. She was excited about this pregnancy and almost giddy to see her new baby, Chase, who she knew was a boy. For husband John, who was thirty-six, this latest child was a welcome addition even though later in life by some standards. John suffered the Iraq strain of PTSD, where he’d served with distinction as a Humvee operator. He was honorably discharged with partial disability. LaToya’s hospitalization was paid by John’s health Blueline Tours health plan, of which Hudd Family Hospitals was the Preferred Provider.

  Latoya gritted her teeth against the contraction and clamped her eyes shut. “It takes everything I have, this time,” she said to the nurses. “This one is special.” With all strength summoned, she pushed down as instructed and continued to breathe on command.

  The contraction passed. She fell back against the soaked sheets, now clumped beneath her low back. She lay panting, out of breath, like some animal run to the ground.

  The delivery room looked like a military skirmish was underway. It smelled of sweat and urine, 4x4s littered the floor, and medical instruments mounted on the wall blinked like a chorus the mother’s vitals and Chase’s telemetry. The delivery team watched the silicon fireworks and exhorted Mama to PUSH.

  Nurse Andrea Mounce leaned around the stirrups and found Latoya’s dilated eyes. “C’mon, girl, push...push. Squeeze it out.”

  “Oh my God,” Latoya answered. “Oh, my God.”

  ​”Let go my hand, girl,” said Andrea, “I need to check the baby’s heart rate. Nancy, give me digits, please.”

  ​Assisting at Nurse Andrea’s elbow was Nurse Nancy, a student nurse all of twenty. She had assisted at these births dozens of times, but still her stomach was in free fall, cascading down in fear at the utter life-and-death of the scene. So much to lose, she knew all too well, so much to gain.

  ​”Nancy, give me digits! Stat!”

  ​”Fetal heart rate one twenty-two BPM pre- and post-contraction. Falling to ninety during contraction.”

  ​It was a teaching hospital, so Andrea’s follow-up question to Nancy was predictable. “And we’re checking this because—”

  ​Nancy didn’t flinch. “If the baby’s heart rate falls below one hundred that means”—she caught Latoya’s sudden fear—“that could mean danger.”

  ​Latoya gulped air. ”Is...my...baby...okay?”

  ​”Good heart rate, holding at one twenty-two,” Andrea reassured her. But no sooner had she said the words than the fetal monitor beeped and flashed its angry eye for attention. Another contraction had attacked the baby’s oxygen.

  ​”Nancy—”

  ​”We’ve got the baby dropped down—ninety-two beats per minute.”

  ​Nurse Andrea puzzled to herself, “We’re mid-contraction, I get that. But why’s the heart rate degrading so low so fast?”

  ​”Heart rate now dipping below eighty,” reported Nancy. Then, as if anticipating her teacher’s question, she lamely added, “Could mean the baby isn’t getting enough oxygen. Could be variable decel. Variable decelerations are caused by compression of the umbilical cord.” This time she avoided connecting with Latoya’s fearful eyes.

  ​Andrea pressed the hand-held Doppler ultrasound probe to auscultate the baby’s heartbeat. ”Thank you, Nancy. Textbook. Mama, squeeze my hand when you first feel the next contraction letting up.” The nurses stood in silence for almost a full minute. Andrea was oblivious to everything but the baby’s heart sounds. Her eyes followed the clock’s sweep hand above the mother’s head. Nancy passed a damp cloth over Latoya’s forehead. Latoya managed a smile and a nod. Then Latoya nodded again. “It’s worst right...now.”

  ​Andrea never broke stride. ”Tell me when it ends.”

  ​”Oh...me. Oh, God!”

  ​”Hang in there. Release my hand when it passes.”

  ​Nurse Nancy offered a tray of ice chips. Latoya batted it away. She grimaced and arched upward, pulling away from the mattress as if by some invisible connection to the ceiling. ”You know where you can...put...the ice. Okay, it’s passing now.”

  ​Her agonized expression relaxed, as did her grip on Andrea’s hand.

  Andrea waited thirty seconds. ​”Three minutes ten seconds,” Andrea announced. She stepped to the small churning platen at Mama’s bedside and examined the fetal heart rate strip. ”What is this about now?” she immediately asked. She spread out the paper record for Nancy to see.

  ​Nancy said, “Variable deceleration? What’s going on?”

  ​Wordlessly they repeated the entire process, the contraction, the timing, the paper strip.

  ​Nurse Andrea again studied the fetal heart rate strip. ”Same thing again. Variable decel. Heart rate dropped to eighty-two. Mama, I’m going to get a doctor in here to check you out. You’re fine but I want to be sure there’s nothing I’m missing. I’m just a nurse. He’ll be just a few minutes.” Andrea pushed the PAGE button on the wall phone.

  “Resident OB to Delivery 404. OB to Delivery 404. Stat!”

  3

  Sue Gartner, MBA, was the ER and Maternity Service staffing director at Hudd Family Hospital, where her office had just been repainted Institutional Green. She hated the color and imagined a light yellow glaze on the wall, with Gladiolus stencils. Her redecorating musings were interrupted when Gerry Springer, MD, entered her office without knocking. Sue scowled. Gerry was a mere intern and should have known better.

  He got right to the point, a fact that Sue appreciated, since it would keep the interruption short. “We’re getting variable decels in Delivery 404,” he announced. “You must have heard the stat page.”

  “And you are telling me this because?”

  “We need staff to get right on this. Someone’s got a baby in trouble. Which brings us around to the topic of you. You’re staffing and you better find someone with more experience in C-sections than me. Variable decels means you should be dialing that phone right now.”

  “Please humor me. Variable decels means what?”

  “Means variable decelerations in the baby’s heart. I was just reading this stuff over the weekend. It means we’ve got a bad baby on our hands if we don’t act immediately to staff that call. According to the literature, we’ll need a C-section in the next half hour.”

  Sue turned her attention to her monitor, speaking as she scrolled. “Can you manage the case until we locate someone?”

  “No can do. I’m only an intern. I’ve only delivered a dozen non-emergent cases.”

  “Then we better find someone who can.” She clicked the mouse and scowled.

  Gerry suddenly blurted, “Where the hell is everybody? Am I the only OB doc on the unit?”

  “Hold your horses—OK. We’ve had two sick call-ins. Your boss and Doreen Abrams.”

  “I’m the only OB on tonight?”

  “So it appears.”

  “Then I hope this lady’s treating gets off his ass and drops by sometime soon. I’ve never done a C-section—I’ve never even assisted at a C-section.”

  Sue lifted her eyes from the screen. “Well, this mig
ht be your first.”

  “Uh-uh. GW hospital policy guarantees thirty-minute decision-to-incision for C-sections. I just learned this.”

  She shrugged. “You’re staff. Handle it until the cavalry arrives. Just keep the lid on things.”

  “Interns are not considered part of that staffing, so that excludes me. As it should.”

  Gerry backed away from the administrator’s desk.

  “Who’s the treating?”

  “Let’s see. Mama told me. Payne, Phillip. You can dial him. You get him pissed with you when his cocktail hour prematurely ejaculates. Better you than me.”

  “Hell with his cocktail hour. 404 is his patient and he can get himself down here now. I’ll call him.”

  “Act tough.”

  “Screw off, buddy boy. I am tough.”

  She returned to her computer screen and clicked the mouse to dial the call.

  * * *

  Latoya Staples looked exhausted.

  Her hair was matted and any sign of makeup had long since disappeared from her pretty face. She was in good physical shape, having been a cheerleader in college who still played racquetball twice a week at the Y, but this delivery had dragged on so much longer than her first two. Nurse Andrea pegged her remaining strength at ten percent.

  Nurse Andrea and Gerry Springer were poised at the foot of the bed, quietly conferring. Andrea was a certified obstetrical nurse. Obstetrical nursing, also called perinatal nursing, was a nursing specialty that worked with patients who were attempting to become pregnant, were currently pregnant, or were recently delivered. Andrea was a seasoned veteran of the nursing wars, somewhere in her mid-thirties, and held the rank of major in the Illinois Air National Guard. There had been talk of her medical unit being activated to Germany but so far it was all rumors. She had very blond hair worn pinned back on one side, and she chewed Juicy Fruit gum nonstop each and every day as she tried to distance herself from her two-pack-a-day Marlboro habit. So far the oral substitute was working; she hadn’t smoked in over ninety days and had only gained three pounds. She wore green scrubs and a hairnet, having assisted at three C-sections over the shift. That night she was pulling a double for an old friend from nursing school who was getting married over the weekend. Andrea was tired but happy to help out a friend.