Preventable Child Deaths Rise In County Number Of Kids Killed By Caretakers Also Up
New statistics on how children die in Spokane County show a sharp rise in the number of preventable deaths.
Deaths of 35 children could have been prevented in 1995 - many by simple measures such as smoke detectors or seat belts - compared with 10 in 1994, according to the Spokane County Child Death Review Committee.
“The remedies are so available as to seem mundane,” said Paul Stepak, the epidemiologist for the Spokane Regional Health District who coordinated the second annual report.
“They seem commonplace to us. It tends to make people a little more blase about their importance.”
The statistics illustrate that people too often overlook the strong link between carelessness and death, said Dr. Deborah Icenogle, a pediatrician on the committee.
“We need to look very hard at prevention and public education,” Icenogle said.
“People go into the mind-set of, ‘What an awful tragedy. I don’t want to think about it and I’m sure it won’t happen to me.”’
Statistics from 1995 are the most recent available, said Stepak.
That year, an alarming number of children were killed by caretakers as well.
Of nine child homicides, six involved youngsters bludgeoned to death by a male caretaker other than their father, Icenogle said.
“If you have a single-parent mom, she needs to be very careful and aware in choosing the caretakers for that child. It’s not that moms don’t love their kids, but they don’t always know how to choose a caretaker or look for red flags.”
Mothers should find out if men watching their children have been abusive in the past or if they have experience in caring for young children, Icenogle said.
In one case, a woman left her 22-month-old son with a boyfriend who’d already served prison time for killing his infant son in Pierce County.
Kenneth Galloway was baby-sitting the Spokane boy, Devin Erb, when he beat him to death in April 1995.
The 1996 statistics were more encouraging when it comes to child abuse deaths. While the review committee hasn’t yet compiled that data, police reported no homicides of children in Spokane County.
Of 117 child deaths in 1995, the committee found 35 were preventable. Those deaths include 13 traffic accidents, two drownings, nine homicides, and eight asphyxias - most involving fires.
“Have your children do a fire drill as to what they do if the home was burning,” urged Stepak. “You’d be surprised as to how few have never done anything.”
Three of the fatal car wrecks involved drugs or alcohol. Seat belts and helmets weren’t used in six crashes.
Two of the accidental deaths were drownings. One toddler was found head-down in a bucket of water.
Most child deaths, including 77 in 1996, are from natural causes such as congenital heart defects or pneumonia.
The report did produce one piece of encouraging news, Icenogle said.
When studying cases of infants who died, the review committee discovered nearly all had adequate prenatal care.
“Looking at whether poor children have good access to medical care, the numbers were encouraging,” said Icenogle.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Graphics: Child deaths increase; Child trauma deaths