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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Pediatrician Under Scrutiny In Baby’s Death Trouble Brews For Doctor With Solid Reputation, 27 Years Of Service In Town After Emergency Room Incident In Which Infant Was Pronounced Dead Twice

James Burke Associated Press

An elderly resident calls this small logging town on the Olympic Peninsula “the end of the road.”

It’s a hard place to keep a doctor, but pediatrician Eugene Turner has stayed for 27 years. He’s treated children across generations and earned a reputation for integrity, selflessness and sound medical judgment.

But his reputation is under scrutiny now, after a 3-day-old baby boy died in the emergency room under his care. Police and state authorities are investigating and the baby’s parents, Martin and Michelle McInnerney, are consulting an attorney about possible legal action in the death of their firstborn.

The baby was pronounced dead twice. Police say they are looking into reports that the doctor “manually obstructed the airway of the child” during the second course of treatment.

There was a snowstorm the night Conor Shamus McInnerney stopped breathing as his mother nursed him at home.

The McInnerneys called 911 at about 7:40 p.m. the night of Jan. 12, police say.

Paramedics rushed the baby to Olympic Memorial Hospital, performing CPR en route.

Twenty minutes after the 911 call, the infant - his heart not beating, his eyes fixed and dilated - was receiving emergency-room care, the hospital’s executive board has determined.

After 39 minutes, his heart was pumping again, says the board’s report on the case.

But the baby had been without a detectable pulse for almost 40 minutes.

“The infant continued to be flaccid with fixed, dilated pupils,” the report says. “The situation was regarded as dismal, and the parents were consulted. It was decided to cease advance life-support measures.”

The baby died in his parents’ arms about 9:50 p.m., the executive board says. An account by hospital staff says the baby died at 9:30 p.m.

The McInnerneys “were very much in accord” with the decision to halt treatment, Turner said.

Turner and the McInnerneys left the hospital. The infant lay motionless on a hospital cart.

About 30 minutes later, however, a nurse found the baby gasping, his skin turning pink.

Turner was called back to the emergency room. He told a nurse not to call the McInnerneys, saying it would be too hard on them.

For a time Turner worked on the baby with an emergency-room doctor.

Turner declared the infant brain-dead, the board’s report says.

An unidentified nurse is quoted in hospital records compiled by the board: “It felt awful to us, like it was a done deal. I felt like he was hurrying this along; I felt like it was taking a life.”

The nurse adds:

“Dr. Turner said I can’t stand it, I can’t have this go on anymore. (I … felt that he was feeling great compassion for the infant, that he felt that death was inevitable, let’s expedite it.)

“I saw him plugging off the infant’s nose. We were shocked, numb.”

The nurse told hospital officials that another nurse also saw Turner block the child’s nose and mouth with his hand.

Police say the child had been treated for about two more hours before he was pronounced dead the second time.

The baby’s grandmother, Diane Anderson, says Turner is a “wonderful physician” who made two mistakes:

He failed to tell the family that the baby showed signs of life after being pronounced dead.

He should not have assumed the infant was brain-dead without confirmation from an electroencephalogram, or EEG, which measures brain waves.

“I have no animosity toward Doctor Turner, but he took my grandson’s life - and that should have been God’s choice,” said Anderson, adding that her son and his wife are considering legal action.

Turner has a lot of support among townspeople. Since the Peninsula Daily News ran its first article on the case Feb. 2, more than a dozen readers have written to complain.

“They say it’s a witch hunt - like we’re making this stuff up,” Managing Editor Roger Morton said.

Turner, 62, is not on staff at the hospital and has voluntarily surrendered his privileges there. He is still treating children at Peninsula Children’s Clinic.

He said he does not know why the baby stopped breathing.

“Technically, the baby was too young to have a SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) death, but for all the world it appeared to be that mode of death.”