Franks, who had been receiving daily reports from Robotham on developments in the ICU, on January 19 dictated a memo to the dean of the UT medical school, Dr. Marvin Dunn. Residents accustomed to offering shallow presentations of a patients status suddenly faced an endless succession of pointed questions: What were the lab results? My nurse has just told me she has taken an overdose of Doxepin, she announced. The ICU was no convent, but Genene was saltier than most. That doesnt make a whole lot of sense. It was as if someone had tried to hide the fact that the bottle had been entered. She shouted and gestured to the paramedics; she seemed to think Jimmy was seizing. If one doctor rejected her advice, Genene called another. What you need to look for is an LVN. An LVN would make about $5 an hour. Before his arrival, the role of the ICU medical director at Bexar County was a minor one. I would bathe the children, and I would sing to them while I bathed them, Genene says. Theres a lot at stake up there. Robotham mentioned the case of Rolando Santos, the child whose repeated bleeding had been documented as a heparin overdose. She had accepted a job offer from Dr. Kathleen Holland, a third year pediatrics resident at Medical Center Hospital who was just getting ready to start her own practice in Kerrville. Please believe that. The nurses had become reluctant to prepare any kind of drug without a witness. Holland told Mrs. Ruff that Rolinda was a little dehydrated; she wanted to start an IV line to get some fluids into her system and then admit her to Sid Peterson for tests and observation. Establishing an overdose of heparin or some other drug, they knew, would require extensive laboratory tests. She felt the blue spells were getting worse. Says Holland: The call was not to set up an appointment to see Cameron. . While Misty sat in her mothers lap, Dr. Holland examined her neck, trying to bend the girls head down to her chest. Patricia Sharpe writes a regular restaurant column, Pats Pick, for Texas Monthly. She was breathing through a tube attached to a respiratory bag. I originally told her no because of all this stuff going on, she says. But by the time that report was written, Genene Jones was long gone from Bexar County Hospital (which is now called Medical Center Hospital). When Genene Jones was released from the hospital after her drug overdose, Texas Ranger Joe Davis had a talk with her. This was the last straw. Grayce Elizabeth Freeland . National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum - Oklahoma City, OK At age 26, Jones filed for a divorce saying that her husband was abusive. Robotham is a brilliant, volatile, compulsive, and demanding man, and he quickly made his mark on the pediatric ICU. This ladys trying to frame me, she said. Nurses and doctors who worked in the ICU recall many more unexpected emergenciesmany of them nonfatalin 1981 and early 1982. They might as well let me go. Robotham, once her protector, had turned against her. She was so strong she ran like a charge nurse. Maybe there wasnt a problem. Wanting still more advice, Holland approached Dr. Victor German, a pediatrician who had assisted James Robotham in the ICU for the past several months. Genene told him she had no idea how the holes had gotten into the bottle of Anectine that Holland had found, and she insisted she hadnt ordered a third bottle of the drug. In the morning Holland met with Dr. Packard in his office at the hospital. They would ask for equipment, and if they didnt get what they wanted, they would toss it down angrily. It wasnt doing much good. Two months later it wasnt necessary; the couple had reconciled, and the judge dismissed the suit. Debbie moved her trailer to Kerrville, but she said the utility company was slow hooking up the electricity. For a hospital nurse, starting an IV is a daily chore, but its one that many never master. Her husband had been drafted into the Navy, and in 1970 they moved to Georgia, where she gave birth on January 19, 1972, in the town of Albany, to Richard Michael DeLany. Inez Butler. Im going with Daddy because I miss him and I want to be with him. The parents of three other childrenChelsea McClellan, Misty Reichenau, and Jacob Evansare suing both Holland and Genene Jones. In August, Dr. Holland hired a secretary-receptionist, a tiny 33-year-old woman named Gwen Grantner, who had bounced from job to job in Kerrville. Therefore, in the pediatric ICU, even more than in most hospital wards, the nurses were an extremely strong presence. Social; Harvey is a co-managing director at Owen Bird LC and has developed a practice that is divided between labour and employment law and general litigation. To see those events unfold is a revelation: it shows how palpable the sense of horror in the San Antonio hospital was; how poorly the sophisticated world of big-city medicine dealt with it; and how a group of small-town doctors finally took the decisive actions that apparently brought the tragedy to an end. A few days after the funeral, the McClellans took out a two-column advertisement in a local paper. Nurses who choose ICU work do so because they like that kind of high-pressure challenge. Robotham and Belko both encouraged her to take charge of the sickest patients. She had failed the polygraph test, and she expected Holland to fail it too. Quick Facts 5418 Meadow Creek Lanes, Houston, TX 77017-6706 is the current address for Harry. Belko sent Maldonado from her office and walked down the long fifth-floor corridorpast the little boys and girls playing in the hall, past the open rooms of children who had busted a leg or lost an appendix, past the kids who would soon leave the pediatric ward, happy and healed. James Delaney has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. Goodbye, Chelsea.. Between May and December of 1981, the last of the hospitals internal inquiries found ten children in the ICU had died after sudden and unexplained complications. There was Dr. Packard (whose office was just a few steps away), Dr. Frank Bradley (an anesthesiologist who had heard the code blue call after finishing morning rounds), Dr. Larry Adams, Dr. Earl Merritt, and Dr. M. B. Johnston. We talked in San Angelo, in a two-bedroom mobile home where she was living with three adults, three children, two cats, and a cocker spaniel named Sprout. About 2 p.m., after his afternoon rounds, Duan Packard sat in the doctors seventh-floor lounge, sipping coffee and puzzling over the problem. Genene Jones and the others were given good recommendations and offered jobs in other parts of the hospital. And when Genene Jones left the town of Kerrville, the emergencies stopped. Hall advised of drastic increases respiratory and cardiac arrests in Kerrville and suspicious deaths in San Antonio, stating that a child killer was suspected, the note reads. Shed said she had a lot of different jobs, but that was because of disagreements. Holland asked Gwen Grantner to join her fledgling medical office. And she is charged with injury to a child in the treatment of Chelsea McClellan on August 24, Brandy Benites on August 27, Chris Parker and Jimmy Pearson on August 30, Misty Reichenau on September 3, Jacob Evans on September 17, and Rolinda Ruff on September 23. The parents whose children became ill in Kathy Hollands office have responded in different ways to the investigation. She thought of Joe Vinas; he was young and approachable, and he had trained at Medical Center Hospital. For an LVN, she was absolutely excellent, says Pat Belko, an RN who is the head nurse of the pediatric ICU. Although they have compiled enormous amounts of material, so far they have found firm evidence of wrongdoing elusive. December 22, 1981: Doraelia Rios, 25 months old, died at 8:12 p.m. She had been hospitalized several times previously for gastrointestinal surgery, and she entered the hospital again on December 21, suffering from diarrhea, dehydration, and possible inflammation of an internal membrane. In the middle of it all, performing CPR or handling drugs, is the patients nurse, the one who called the code in the first place. Privately, they wondered what was going on. If you cant find it, she told Genene, log it as missing and order another bottle. Genene took out a stethoscope and placed it on Jimmys chest. We need to find some things out, Packard told him. When the calls came in the middle of the night, he didnt just tell his doctors what to do; he showed up at the hospital. There was none. In April he learned of a new test that might do what he had believed impossible: find succinylcholine (that is, Anectine) in embalmed body tissue. She listened to their complaints and fears. She had studied the ICUs census bookthe listing of patients and their condition during their stay in the unit. Genene Jones is a street fighter. She wanted a lot of attention. One morning in October 1981, after finishing up the overnight nursing shift in the pediatric intensive care unit at Bexar County Hospital in San Antonio, Suzanna Maldonado stepped into the office of her boss. Her parents took her home. The ORI Search option requires the provision of an ORI number to carry our arrest record searches. We talked to them even after death. Seizure? (713) 946-8997 is Harry's phone number. There were two vials in the refrigerator, she recalls. There was going to be an investigation, he told her. I told her no two or three times. Finally, Genene says, when Holland arrived in the ICU with floor plans for her new office in Kerrville, she accepted. This article is an account of what really happened inside Bexar County Hospital and the pediatricians office in Kerrville. I flipped them up to myself, and there were two huge holes in the stopper [of one]. It took Petti weeks even to accept that Chelsea was gone. How many had she taken? But Robotham didnt buy it. After a while Holland came out and told the ReichenausLarry had arrived at the hospital by thenthat she wanted to fly Misty to Medical Center Hospital in San Antonio for tests and observation. Mimi Swartz is a staff writer based in Houston. Steve Harvey welcomes award-winning actress Dana Delany for an chat about turning 60, her French "lover," and her new Amazon Prime series, "Hand of God."Subs. By October she was ready to go to Pat Belkoready for the confrontation that convinced Belko that she should take the suspicions about Genene to Dr. Robotham and persuade him to launch investigation. The new doctor was intrigued. You better think twice. It was filled with supplies and equipment for conducting simple lab tests. Kathleen Mary Holland often told her friends that she was amazed she had ever become a doctor. As August 1982 arrived, the first house was little more than a wooden frame. It was a case of having to use a huge stick because it was impossible to single out one, says Dr. Arthur McFee, chairman of the surgery department. City Employees Are Heading for the Exits. He was my boy, she says now; she had cared for the child for months. They knew it was impossible to hear a heartbeat over the din of the helicopter. Chris had in the meantime been transferred up to the ICU, and Maywhort went up to check on his condition. The doctors asked about the drugs she had used. Onea blue-eyed, fifteen-month-old girl named Chelsea Ann McClellandied. Nobody did a damn thing up there. But there seemed to be too many cases. The job was part time, and the doctors who held it were content to let the individual physicians who admitted patients to the unit manage their care. There were six LVNs besides Genene, and one of them had been there since 1969. Are you sure? The ambulance arrived, and Jacob was carried into the back. If residents thought she overreacted, cried wolf, and woke them up too much, Robotham thought she was often right. To the best of my knowledge, weve never had one in Kerrville. When Genene called to say something was wrong with a child, Kathy Holland came running. I was a new nurse. Her court-appointed lawyer, Bill Chenault of San Antonio, had told her not to talk about her case, but on this evening she had too much to say. Franks notified Corum, and they relaxed a bit. He told residents and nurses to call him with any problem, at any hour. Charleigh had bought the land in May 1980 with the help of a Veterans Land Board loan, and theyd been dreaming of living there ever since. The hospital administration planned to employ only registered nurses in all its ICUs; the pediatric unit just happened to be the first. The problem had never cropped up with such frequency before. She picked the child up and took her out of the office. Why did she think that was happening? On July 5, after 21 days in the hospital, she was eating well and breathing on her own, and her weight had climbed to four pounds, six ounces. We report on vital issues from politics to education and are the indispensable authority on the Texas scene, covering everything from music to cultural events with insightful recommendations. She walked around the trailer home carrying her daughters toys and talking to them. Harvey passed away on month day 1998, at age 73 at death place , Texas. But they finally decided to move out all the licensed vocational nurses (LVNs), Genene Jones among them, under the cover of upgrading the nursing staff to consist only of registered nurses, who have more training than LVNs. When she arrived, Genene approached her: did she remember that bottle or Anectine that had turned up missing a few weeks ago? You show me a puppy that comes up to me and licks my hand. Its an incredible experience. Her reputation quickly spread, and nurses on the pediatric floor began calling her out of the ICU to start IVs for them. The guard then walks with the nurse to a staff elevator that takes them to the basement, and there he unlocks the morgue door. It was jerky, uncontrolled movements with a purpose, but an inability to accomplish that purpose.. Theyve been cheated out of a hell of a lot.. I said Do you think Im doing something to the kids? He said, Yeah. I said, Why? He said he didnt know.. Im not guilty of murder, & I hope you believe that. Suzanna Maldonado began working in the pediatric ICU in 1980, less than a year after getting her RN degree. Sometimes, as wrong as it may seem, you have to except what life dishes out. Damn aggressive. The childs death certificate says the bleeding caused the fatal cardiac arrest. I know how my mother feels about Heather, but I also know how she feels about Michael. Mr. James Harvey Delaney, age 56 - a native and lifelong resident of Mobile, AL died Friday, July 10, 2009 at a local healthcare facility. Kathy Holland planned to live outside the hamlet of Center Point, on a rugged sixteen-acre tract fifteen miles south of the clinic. They moved back to San Antonio, but by then the marriage had begun to collapse. No response. He kept after the nurses as well. Chelsea was sprawled on the examining table, Genene hovering over her. Babies pricked with intravenous needles began oozing blood, their clotting mechanisms inexplicably gone haywire. Genene got out a respiratory bag and began trying to pump air into the child. Both bottles were completely full, Genene said; evidently the lost (and now found) bottle had never been used. Show more Service areas (0) Professional Information Broker address: Keller Williams Realty 9087 Poplar Avenue, Suite 101 Germantown, TN 38138 Cell phone: (901) 229-0566 Broker phone: (901) 221-5100 Websites: Website, LinkedIn Screenname: jamesharveyjr Member since: 10/14/2016 Real Estate Licenses: Not provided Contact James Harvey, Jr Let me go, and let the rest stay. No, Mousseau assured her, the move wasnt directed at any one person. Those kids are helpless. October 10, 1981: Jose Antonio Flores, six months and three days old, died in the ICU at 5:22 p.m. When Misty arrived there, Dr. Ray W. Mackey, a pediatric neurologist, found her agitated, breathing on her own, and struggling against the breathing tube, which he took out. Mr. Delaney worked in the cabinet making business since he graduated from Murphy High School in 1971. But first there was the matter of Halls appointment with Holland, which went off as scheduled at about noon. Eight miles down the road, the peaks and valleys on the heart monitor fell into a flat line; Chelsea was arresting. Now, for the first time, there was real evidence of a heparin overdose in the pediatric ICU; in response, Robotham ordered heparin removed from patients bedside tables and kept in the drug cabinet with the narcotics. Holland began to elaborate; to the other doctors she seemed tense but self-assured and professional. It was a real stressful time., Everyone knew that Genene Jones was the prime target of suspicion. In the back of the ICU was a small room where the nurses could sit and relax. We dont know when the spirit leaves the body. Genene finished cleaning Chris Hogeda and wrapped his body in a blanket. Forrest Wilder writes about politics and the outdoors. Holland led her over to the refrigerator and told her to remove the two bottles of Anectine and look at the top of each. The doctors sat back and talked about what they had heard. 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