[BeingReal]

Drunken baby taken to Lafayette hospital

17-month-old child had a blood-alcohol level of .195



By John Aguilar, Camera Staff Writer
October 12, 2006

An Erie mother has been ticketed on suspicion of child abuse after taking her 17-month-old son to the emergency room because he became severely intoxicated from drinking wine.

Lisa Shattuck, 38, was cited with a misdemeanor charge of criminally negligent child abuse and is scheduled to appear before a Boulder County judge later this month.

The boy, who was described in a police report as "very sick" and alternating between a state of unresponsiveness and vomiting when he entered the emergency room at Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center in Lafayette on Sunday night, had a blood-alcohol level of .195 percent.

By comparison, the legal driving limit in Colorado is .08 percent.

According to the report, both the doctor and a nurse who treated Shattuck's son at the hospital said they had never seen such a high blood-alcohol level in a child so young.

Sharon Burnette, director of communications and marketing at Exempla, said it is unusual for children with alcohol in their bloodstream to show up at the hospital and that medical staff consulted a poison control center Sunday for advice. She said the boy was released from the hospital Monday morning.

The responding physician, Lee Stigler, told police she didn't know how much alcohol the child consumed, but that it would have taken "a lot" of wine to make his blood-alcohol level so high.

"It doesn't appear this was an accident," said Erie police Lt. Lee Mathis. "For a 17-month-old to get to that level of intoxication, you as a parent should be doing a better job of monitoring."

Shattuck declined to comment on the case Wednesday.

According to the police report, emergency room nurse Kelly Galloway told officers that Shattuck said the little boy "likes red wine" and that she had given him "sips" of it on previous occasions.

But Shattuck told an officer she has never given alcohol to her son. She said the incident Sunday was an accident and the boy took a couple of sips from a 12-ounce glass of wine she had set down on an end table when she was "super busy" in the kitchen.

She said he became "fussy" about 15 minutes after consuming the wine and she gave him a children's pain killer and cold medicine to see if that would help, the police report said. The child became unresponsive shortly afterward, and the parents took him to the hospital, it said.

Lt. Mathis said it was hard to determine the facts of the case because Shattuck gave conflicting accounts to police and medical staff. He said there was no evidence that Shattuck forced her son to drink wine, which could have resulted in a far more serious charge, but officers felt she had at minimum placed her son in a significantly risky situation.

"They concluded that the child was given access to alcohol and that this was criminally negligent," he said. "Criminal negligence is a low-level charge."

A caseworker with the Boulder County Social Services Department said the agency would visit the family and follow up with the boy and his three older siblings, according to the police report.

Contact Camera Staff Writer John Aguilar at (303) 473-1389 or aguilarj@dailycamera.com. http://www.dailycame...ews/a...5060147,00.html

[BuffaloBill]

According to the police report, emergency room nurse Kelly Galloway told officers that Shattuck said the little boy "likes red wine" and that she had given him "sips" of it on previous occasions.

But Shattuck told an officer she has never given alcohol to her son. She said the incident Sunday was an accident and the boy took a couple of sips from a 12-ounce glass of wine she had set down on an end table when she was "super busy" in the kitchen.



She said he became "fussy" about 15 minutes after consuming the wine and she gave him a children's pain killer and cold medicine to see if that would help, the police report said. The child became unresponsive shortly afterward, and the parents took him to the hospital, it said

take her kids away and lock her up, she knew he consumed wine from her glass 'when real busy' then fifteen minutes later she thinks its a good idea to drug him? WTF

[twinmom]

I agree BB. Poor parenting indeed. Another candidate for the P.A.T.

[BeingReal]

take her kids away and lock her up, she knew he consumed wine from her glass 'when real busy' then fifteen minutes later she thinks its a good idea to drug him? WTF

And what do you want to bet that the cold medicine had alcohol in its ingredients, too, like Children's Nyquil does? Or, just as bad, that pseudonephedrine (? on spelling)? She probably didn't even consider that!

[BuffaloBill]

my liver and kidneys hurt just thinking about it

This post has been edited by BuffaloBill: 13 October 2006 - 06:41 AM

[solitary]

As most of you know, I'm against minor-drinking laws.
However, this is rediculous. I don't know the weight of your average 17 month old. I'm guessing 35lbs, which is probably high. But then again, this is the US, and childhood obesity is common.
So, a 35lb child drinks one (1) glass of table wine in 15 minutes or 0.25 hours, according to http://www.intox.com.../drinkwheel.asp he would have a BAC of 0.85, assuming that this is the first time he drank this much, he'd be pretty drunk and probably want to take a nap. Since he doesn't have any tolerance, I wouldn't want him to be driving, but seeing as how he'd be unable to reach the pedals or see over the wheel, I don't think that's a consideration.
Two (2) glasses of table wine would get him to a 0.195 BAC, which would indicate Mom should have known that he drank her first glass, and then her second glass.
I'm going to go way out on a limb and assume that Jr. got in the liquor cabinet and started chugging a bottle and mom didn't notice some how. I don't think a toddler's stomach can hold that much! And I don't think he'd be able to consume it in 15 minutes.
The other possibility is he got into the liquor cabinet, pulled out some old grandad and took a couple shots. Whiskey (and all the other hard liquors) don't seem like something a toddler would consider to be edible after the first taste.
Even one full glass of wine seems like a stretch, and mom's a dumbass for giving him cold medication for being "fussy".

Keep an eye on this one, I expect to see her in the news again.

This post has been edited by solitary: 13 October 2006 - 09:05 AM

[twinmom]

It did seem like a high blood alcohol level for just the "few sips" she said he had.

[LicenseForMayhem]

Some dolts still put beer or liquor in their kids' baby bottles to "help them sleep".