Neighbours find starving kids with 'little skeleton arms' before tiny boy dies
Horrified neighbours found starving children with "little skeleton arms" after a "so skinny" boy died after he was found unresponsive at an apartment complex.
At around 5am on Monday, a woman screamed for help, and within minutes, her neighbour, Brandon Ashby, who lives upstairs, was on the scene.
He burst through the door and found the child unresponsive on the floor — evidently malnourished, with bony, twig-like arms and knobby knees that showed bone through his flesh.
Mr Ashby had to move two other starving children, aged 3 and 4, out of the way to perform CPR on the lad, reported ABC 13.
Other neighbours had allegedly heard the scream and called the police, who arrived seconds later with paramedics and the fire department in tow. EMS continued to perform CPR on the boy as they prepared to take him to the hospital.
Baby boy has spent his life in hospital as doctors are 'scared' to discharge him
Investigators are determining whether or not there was foul play involved in the 9-year-old's death (ABC13 WS)But the life-saving efforts proved futile — the lad died at an area hospital about an hour later. The police reported that, at the time, his stomach appeared to be sunken in.
The mother, however, was adamant that her child was not malnourished but instead was suffering from other medical conditions, including cystic fibrosis. She accused Mr Ashby of lying to police and to the press about her son's condition, allegedly telling the authorities that her son had "failure to thrive" and that Mr Ashby doesn't know his medical history.
Cystic fibrosis affects the body's ability to properly make the proteins that create mucus, which lines the lungs and airways, the digestive tract and other organs and tissues in the body. It can affect digestive processes and result in low BMI, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
Assistant Houston Police Chief Chandra Hatcher said the police must determine the boy's cause of death first before making moves in the investigation (ABC13 WS)Speaking to ABC 13, Mr Ashby tearfully said of the children: "They were starving. They were so skinny. When I grabbed their arms, they wre just like little skeleton arms. And the baby, the one that passed, he was so skinny. I pumped as hard as I could, and I could see his knees. They were so big, like skeletons."
Assistant Police Chief Chandra Hatcher, however, said the police are continuing to investigate every angle.
"At this point in time, we don't know how that played or did not play into what occurred early in the morning," she said of the boy's alleged medical conditions. She admitted that they did call Child Protective Services and brought in their homicide investigators, who spoke with the mother.
The police were called to the apartment after neighbours heard the mother screaming for help (ABC13 WS)Later in the morning after her son's death, the woman reportedly returned to the apartment in Houston, Texas, then took her other children, who appeared malnourished but allegedly didn't need medical attention. She left with a friend.
There was food in the fridge but very little furniture in the apartment, according to investigators, but the mother had allegedly just moved in about two months prior.
Her neighbours, in that short amount of time, told the police that they had seen her children asking for food on occassion.
The boy's cause of death is yet to be determined, and that will guide the course of the investigation, Hatcher said.
Disabled woman paralysed after falling from wheelchair on plane walkway dies
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
