We Overcame Ludicrous Charges by Protective Services

Last night, I was shocked to come to our front door to find a group of police officers along with two representatives from Protective Services claiming that they had a court order to remove our children due to allegations that we were conducted medical procedures that were endangering Chase. You can imagine my incredulous response – what?!, who?!, why?! The trumped up charges were so ludicrous that it was hard to believe they were serious – that we conducted unauthorized blood draws and gave him sea salt (when his sodium was dangerously low)?!

When I explained that everything that we’ve done has been under the supervision and guidance of licensed medical practitioners and provided documentation to substantiate this, their response was that “it doesn’t matter, we have a signed court order and we have to remove your children”... thank God I didn’t have weapons in the house, or I might be in big trouble right now. Instead, I had to swallow hard, showed them Chase’s accommodations, including his ventilator and explained that if this was to happen, we would need to use my back-up system (which they knew nothing about) and that he wasn’t in a condition to be safely transported anywhere. Eventually, they realized this and let me direct the transfer to Beaumont hospital, who I contacted and got them ready with pre-admission paperwork so that he could go right up to the Pediatric ICU unit that is familiar with his case. This actually went reasonably well, despite the fact that it certainly wasn’t necessary to have six officer escorts, a fire truck, ambulance, security guards, etc (including a security guard in our hospital room all night). I told them that if there was a legitimate concern, a simple phone call or meeting would have been sufficient to clear it all up – but that’s beside the point.

By Divine Intervention, Carol and Barbara were at a gymnastics class so they weren’t exposed to this madness, particularly since the warrant required the removal of Barbie as well. I just can’t imagine the needless trauma that would’ve caused her. We were able to get their approval to let her stay at her God Parents home (who are registered foster parents in the State of Michigan) while we worked to clear this ridiculous accusation up as soon as possible (another night with little sleep).

Well, as expected, when we provided our documentation to the court, the Prosecutors Office declined to even pursue any charges and requested immediate dismissal of the case, which the Circuit Judge agreed to do. In the meantime, we got more “excitement” than we needed with the situation that we’re going through. On the bright side (although it’s painful to overlook the gross negligence in their pursuing such a charge without doing the slightest reasonable diligence), Chase was able to get a transfusion, which he needed to pull up his hemoglobin and some help with balancing his electrolytes. Of course, we would have been happy to arrange all of this in an orderly fashion, if someone who had such a concern had the decency to discuss it with us.

It seems that the Henry Ford Hospice service, which we engaged for about a week and subsequently discharged from our case, started this ball rolling (probably feeling slighted by our dismissal). When they hinted a couple of weeks ago that they would be placing this call, we thought we had head off the issue by getting our Doctor’s orders reinstated and clearing the situation with them. Then when we went to follow-up with them about our arrangements for Chase’s ongoing care, they didn’t return our calls. Nevertheless, someone apparently went way out of their way to make things difficult for us and they are now protected under privacy privileges of the Protective Services agency. This is a real eye-opener and a nightmare that we wouldn’t wish upon anyone – fortunately, we got it resolved quickly and now it’s getting publicized – Channel 4 News will be featuring the story at 11 pm tonight. We’ll have to see what their “take-away” is, but in discussions with us they seemed just as flabbergasted as we were about this whole situation – just think about it, the medical establishment that was trying to convince us to “give it up and pull the plug” is now trying to protect Chase from being harmed by us since we’re administering medical care at our home?!?

Anyhow, as they say, “all’s well that ends well” and the final chapter of this crazy episode will hopefully be a safe discharge and return home tomorrow, or soon thereafter once Chase’s bloodwork stabilizes again. I’m just thanking God that he wasn’t harmed during this ridiculous sequence of events and we’re getting some help for a couple of days (although we can do without help under these kind of circumstances going forward). After digging some more into just what happened behind the scenes, we’ll need to find another way to get whatever assistance we need in a more practical way with trustworthy home service organizations – this is just another learning experience about our wonderful medical and administration system... Fortunately, Chase’s Prayer Warriors and Angels were there to protect him and our family once again. Thanks so much for all the prayers – they’re helping more than you’ll ever know...

God Bless!!

John & Carol Sammut
Chase & Barbara