Exactly. It could have been a visitor or family member, another patient or a visitor of another patient, a vendor like a flower delivery boy, or someone who walked in off the street.
I don’t know about you, but I have been a visitor in a hospital (not THIS hospital, mind you) about a dozen times and have never once been asked to state my purpose or produce an ID. Once, I was asked who I was visiting at the front desk, and was given a temporary visitor’s badge. Again, I did not present an ID. I have also worked as an IT sub-contractor and walked the halls of Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. I wore a temp ID badge that did not have my name on it and was never questioned.
Not quite, IIRC. Her doctor impregnated her to get stem cells to help his wealthy patient, who had Parkinson’s. The mother wanted to keep the baby because it was her grandchild and she was herself against abortion. I think this was an SVU episode.
Sure, but DNA testing of the staff would eliminate them as suspects, so they could check logs for the time when this could have happened.
You’d also think it would be done by someone familiar with the place, since your random delivery boy wouldn’t know that he wouldn’t get walked in on. I’d also think that the rape might have happened more than once, since she did get pregnant.
In the L&O episode, the parents paid an orderly to impregnate the daughter in the coma. It was about getting the grandchild. The orderly bought a Harley, then got the snot beaten out of him by brothers of a different patient who they thought he raped but did not.
One of the many reasons why I’m atheist and deny the existence of any of the Abrahamic gods.
As far as testing the male staff’s DNA, they had better come with a court order. I’m not interested in any spiel stating “this will eliminate you as a suspect.”
ETA: To be clear, I am NOT a rapist, nor do I think rapist should get a pass.
I’ve a hunch that, as the story develops, one obvious suspect will emerge, with enough probable cause that the police will be able to get a warrant for his DNA.
That said, a legal hypothetical: Suppose that it were possible to narrow down the list of possible suspects to a finite and manageable number. And suppose that all but one of those men voluntarily offered a DNA sample to the police, and that all of those samples were verified as not being the father. Could that fact be used as evidence against the last suspect?
Dr. Atkins’ massive weight gain in his last days was due to a phenomenon called third-spacing, where bodily fluids leak from the capillaries and even cell walls; the person becomes edematous and dehydrated at the same time. A relatively recent example that got in the news a few years ago involved the Ebola patients who were treated in the U.S. and Europe; many of them GAINED as much as 50 pounds over baseline, despite massive diarrhea and/or vomiting, and that’s how it happened. One of them was so “puffy”, IV access had to be obtained in their tibias, where there’s a large marrow chamber just underneath the surface, and that’s every bit as painful as it sounds. :eek: Apparently it’s used quite a bit in critically ill babies and small children; I never personally saw an order for it.
I, too wonder what kind of “nursing home” she was in, for her caregivers not to notice that she was pregnant? For one thing, didn’t she have menstrual cycles, and didn’t anyone notice that she wasn’t having them any more?
Some of us on another board also wondered if the perpetrator might not be someone who works there - because it was ANOTHER CLIENT. This is not uncommon in senior-oriented nursing homes or homes for people with traumatic brain injuries, due to the loss of inhibitions, or MR/DD facilities as well. It could also have been a contract employee, a relative of a visitor, etc. In any case, this person needs to be caught and sent to prison.
Ok, but to be fair you work in a prison. Your horribleness bar is high.
For me, this story’s breathtaking in its awfulness. She was potentially exposed to STDs by her rapist, there’s no telling how often he raped her, and there’s no telling if she was aware of being assaulted. Her family must be shattered by this.
I also wonder if the patient ever went out on passes.
There was a comparable story a while back about a disabled woman who did get pregnant (and the condition was not discovered until it was too late for an abortion). Her sister would bring her home a few times a month, usually for a weekend, and in the end, it turned out that her husband had done this! :mad: The healthy sister adopted the baby, and the husband went to prison.
There are all sorts of degrees of coma; people in them range from those who are brain-dead on life support, to people who are partially conscious and in some cases can even walk and/or speak. There’s also locked-in syndrome, where people are completely aware of their surroundings and similarly unable to care for themselves. The wonderful book and movie “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” are by and about someone who became this way after a stroke.
I could have said the same thing before working in a prison. I’ve worked in a Children’s hospital ER, along with STD clinics too.
As for not picking up a pregnancy: I’ve done obstetrics and taken care of nursing home patients who were vegetative. The latter don’t get routine abdominal exams or gyn exams, especially if in a comatose/vegetative state and emphasis is on care and comfort, not diagnosis and treatment. So pregnancy would not routinely be noted, frankly. And I’ve seen pregnant women who didn’t show it at all, even at term. Not morbidly obese ones either, but ones with enough adipose tissue and loose skin, to easily cover the evidence.
It doesn’t take that long to rape someone, and it only needs to happen once for pregnancy to occur.
Granted, it’s more likely it’s someone who have more access than a brief time period just once, but it’s not impossible for it to have been a one time thing.
The time it could have happened would be any time in a four to six week block, roughly nine months before the birth. There might be records of who worked a shift within that time, and maybe a list of common deliveries and regular visitors. But I doubt there’s an easy list of everyone who might have been there within the time window. And no one is going to remember a random stranger after this length of time.
Also, some people like the thrill of doing something that they might be caught at. Even dismissing that, it wouldn’t take many deliveries to get a feel for a place, especially if the deliveries were during shifts with low staffing levels.
Sure, it’s not impossible, but staff and regular visitors are a better bet. If you can eliminate them, then you can start looking for delivery people.
Alas, no camera record and probably not very good security.
Rape and abuse happens frequently to the elderly in nursing homes, and even if they can report it, the nursing homes often don’t report to the police, and often say the person was delusional, or doesn’t understand whet they were saying.
This is not uncommon in senior-oriented nursing homes or homes for people with traumatic brain injuries, due to the loss of inhibitions, or MR/DD facilities as well. It could also have been a contract employee, a relative of a visitor, etc. In any case, this person needs to be caught and sent to prison.