FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 2): Baltimore – Mary Rose
Robaczynski not only admitted unplugging one patient’s respirator, but said she
and other Maryland General Hospital nurses did the same to other patients,
witnesses testified at her murder trial Tuesday.
“I really screwed up this time, didn’t it? If only I hadn’t
done the first one,” nursing supervisor Peggy Ann Ryan quoted Mrs. Robaczynski
as saying.
Mrs. Ryan said Mrs. Robaczynski told her, “I wasn’t the only
one,” but refused to name the others because, “I’m not going to rat on the
others like they did on me.”
However, she said Mrs. Robaczynski added, “Oh well, she was
Filipino but it doesn’t matter because she doesn’t work here anymore.”
Mrs. Robaczynski, 24, is charged with murder by unplugging
the life support system that kept comatose patient Harry Gessner alive. She
also faces three other first degree murder charges in patient deaths.
Another nurse, Thomasina Springham, the hospital’s
psychiatric clinical specialist, yold a Baltimore Criminal Court jury that Mrs.
Robaczynski became angry during a counselling session March 17, 1978, the day
she resigned.
“I only did it to the Gorks,” Mrs. Springham quoted Mrs.
Robaczynski as saying, explaining that “Gork” was a hospital term for comatose
patients whose chances of survival were slim.
She said Mrs. Robaczynski was “angry with the system, after
all she just lost her job,” and that when the possibility of legal charges came
up, said, “If it comes to that, I’ll deny it.”
Mrs. Ryan testified during cross-examination that Mrs.
Robaczynski always received good hospital evaluations for her work and her
knowledge of her job.
[Jim Rowley, “Witnesses Say Nurse Told of Patient Deaths,”
UPI, Schenectady Gazette (N. Y.), Mar. 6, 1979, p. 4]
***
FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 2): Baltimore – The state dropped
murder charges Thursday against a nurse accused of engaging in mercy killing by
unplugging the respirators of four comatose patients. In return, she agreed to
give up her nursing license and never practice again.
Mary Rose Robaczynski, 24, had been tried on a murder charge
in the death of Harry Gessner, 48, one of the four patients, but the case ended
in a mistrial last week.
On Thursday, State’s Attorney William A. Swisher said
prosecutors had decided not to retry the case, and to drop all charges, if Mrs.
Robaczynski would agree not to practice nursing in Maryland or any other state.
Swisher said the decision was based partly on the vagueness
or Maryland law defining death. He said his office would now try to get the
Legislature to change the definition.
“After talking woth 11 of the jurors, we have determined
that they were unable to agree on whether the victim was legally dead or alive
at the time the respirator was disconnected within the terms of our statute,”
he said. “ . . . The law should be clarified. We need an accepted universal
definition of death.”
Mrs. Robaczynski was not available for comment, but a
defense attorney, George J. Helinski, said. “It was our position all along that
the law was not written for criminal prosecution in terms of the time of
death.”
Swisher said he had not talked to the families of the four
patients and did not know if the planned civil action. Asked if his office
would turn over records if a civil suit is filed, he said “If it is legal, we
will try to cooperate.”
Mrs. Robaczynski, of Pasadena, Md., admitted during the
trial that she unplugged Gessner’s respirator in the special unit of Maryland
General Hospital about 5 a. m. March 8, 1978. Several nurses had testified as
prosecution witnesses that Mrs. Robaczynski had expressed a relief in
euthanasia, but she said she thought Gessner already was dead because she got
neither pulse nor blood pressure readings.
Some aspects of the case recalled the mysterious deaths of
several patients at a Veterans Administration hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich., in
1975, at a time when 50 patients had suffered mysterious breathing failures.
In that case, the government accused two nurses of inducing
the outbreak with the drug Pavulon, and in 1977, and in 1977 a U. S. District
Court jury convicted them of conspiracy and of poisoning patients. Later,
however, the judge criticized the prosecutors’ conduct and granted a new trial.
He dismissed the indictments when the prosecutor said the government would not
retry the case because the evidence was weak.
No mercy-killing allegations were made in that case,
however. The prosecutors did not claim a specific motive, but did seek
testimony that the nurses were disgruntled and felt overworked.
In Mrs. Robaczynski’s case, Judge Robert Karwacki declared a
mistrial when the jurors told him on March 20 that they could not reach a
verdict after almost 20 hours of deliberation. The jury was voting 102 in favor
of acquittal, several jurors have said.
Mrs. Robaczynski was to have been tried separately on murder
accusations in the deaths of the three other patients. Mrs. Robaczynski said
she disconnected the respirators of Gessner and two other of her alleged
victims because she thought them dead. She denied doing so on the fourth
patient.
Since shortly after her forced resignation from Maryland
General in March 1978, Mrs. Robaczynski has worked for a janitorial service,
cleaning homes and offices. She testified that she twice got nursing jobs with
other Baltimore area hospitals but was asked to leave after they were contacted
by Maryland General, which was then investigating the mercy-killing
allegations.
[“Murder Charge Dropped in Mercy Killing,” AP, The Victoria
Advocate (Tx.), Mar. 30, 1979, p. 9C]
***
***
***
***
***
Chronology:
Dec. 1977 – first of four euthanasia killings.
Mar. 8, 1978 – Harry Gessner, death; suspended (?) From job.
Mar. 17, 1978 – “Mrs. Robaczynski became angry during a
counselling session March 17, 1978, the day she resigned.”
Aug. 18, 1978 – indicted
Mar. 8, 1979 – trial begins.
Mar. 20, 1979 – mistrial declared.
Mar. 29, 1979 – “On March 20, the jury deadlocked at 10-to-2
in favor of acquittal, resulting in declaration of a mistrial. Nine days later,
charges were dismissed in return for Robaczynski’s promise to surrender her
nursing license and refrain from practicing anywhere inside the United States.”
***
***
***
***
***
Some coma cases:
1) 30 years – 1963-1993 – Annie Shapiro – Canada / Florida,
USA
EXCERPT: But amazingly, on Oct 14, 1992, she suddenly
snapped out of her coma. Mr Shapiro, who had retired and moved his ill wife to
a retirement community in Florida, was flabbergasted. . . . The most touching part of the miracle was the
renewed romance between Shapiro and her husband, who had cared for her all
those years, refusing to have her placed in a nursing home. “When I made my
marriage vows and promised to stay together in sickness and in health, I meant
it,” said Mr Shapiro on a national TV show, “not like the people of today.” Our
romance began all over again. [Ron Laytner, “She Went To Sleep And Woke Up 30
Years Later,” The Straits Times, Sunday Plus, Apr. 5, 1998]
2) 20 years – 1985-2005 – Sarah Scantlin – Exeter, England
A simple, “Hi, Mom” and “Hi, Dad, Happy Valentine’s Day” may
not seem like much. But after years of communicating only through blinking her
eyes, Sarah Scantlin, 38, had just spoken her first words to her parents in 20
years. Sarah’s first words since being hit by a car in 1984 – – “OK, OK” – –
came during a speech therapy session a few weeks before. Not wanting to give
the family false hope, therapists at Golden Plains Health Care Center in
Hutchinson, Kansas, worked diligently with Sarah to help her speak even more,
according to the Kansas City Star. [Liz Townsend, “Brain-Injured Woman Regains
Power of Speech after 20 Years,” National Right to Life News Today, February
27, 2013]
[Tatiana Morales, “Awake After 20 Years, Sarah Speaks,” CBS,
Aug. 4, 2005]
3) 19 years – 1984-2003 – Terry Wallis – Stone County,
Arkansas, USA
The words began tumbling out — at first just a few nouns and
eventually a torrent of phrases. Terry Wallis, who had been in a coma since a
1984 car accident, regained consciousness last month to the surprise of doctors
and the delight of his family, including his mother, who heard his first word
in 19 years. “He started out with ‘Mom’ and surprised her and then it was
‘Pepsi’ and then it was ‘milk.’ And now it’s anything he wants to say,” Stone
County Nursing and Rehabilitation Center social director Alesha Badgley said
Tuesday. [Francie Grace, “Man Awakes After 19 Years In Coma,” AP, CBS News,
July 9, 2003]
4) 19 years – 1988-2006 – Jan Grzebski – Poland
EXCERPT: The second 19-year coma survivor was a Polish man
named Jan Grzebski. A railroad worker, Grzebski, 46, suffered his coma in 1988 in
what was initially believed to be a workplace accident but was later attributed
to a 5-centimeter brain tumor. Grzebski was able to survive the tumor, and
eventually emerged from his coma in 2006. In an interview after he woke up,
Grzebski admitted to being overwhelmed by the abundance of foods in his local
shops, cell phones, and the fall of communism. Unfortunately, Grzebski passed
away two years after waking up from his coma. The cause of death was a heart
attack, believed to be related to the coma. [Jeffrey Kopman, “Waking Up: Famous
Coma Survivors,” Healthy Living, Sep. 9, 2012]
5) 9 years – 2005-2016 – Ayanda Nqinana, Johannseburg, South
Africa
EXCERPT: A South African man who had been in a coma for
seven years was ‘woken up’ after being given a sleeping pill.Ayanda Nqinana,
from Johannseburg, was left with severe brain injuries after his car crashed
along an Eastern Cape road in 2005.His doctors said the father-of-one would
most likely never recover.But his wife Nomfundo recently read a newspaper article
about other long-term coma patients who had woken up after being fed sleeping
pill Stilnox. [Graham Smith, “Medical miracle? Father ‘wakes up’ from
seven-year coma after he is given a sleeping pill,” MailOnline, Sep. 11, 2012]
6) 5 years – 2010-2015 – Matt Davis – Georgia, USA
EXCERPT: Surgeons told Danielle Davis her newlywed husband
Matt would never wake up - but she kept on fighting - and so did he. When
doctors wanted to switch off Matt Davis’ life support machine the only thing
stopping them was his loyal wife. The 22-year-old married Danielle seven months
before he was involved in a serious motorcycle crash that put him in a coma.
His devastated new bride, 23, from Georgia, US, sat by her husband’s bedside
each day and would talk to Matt while holding his hand. [David Raven, “Miracle
man wakes from coma after wife battled doctors to keep life support switched
on,” Daily Mirror (London, England), Apr. 7,
2015]
7) 2011 – Taylor Hale – Waukee, Iowa, USA
EXCERPT: The family of Taylor Hale gathered in her hospital
room nearly four years ago. They assembled to say goodbye. The date was Sept.
17, 2011 — six days after what normally would have been a silly teenage moment
spawned a terrible sequence of events that resulted in two parents preparing to
say goodbye to their 14-year-old daughter. . . . Later that afternoon, doctors
turned off the life support that had been helping her breath since the
accident. And then, something unexpected happened: Taylor struggled to take a
breath under her own power. They reconnected life support. As the day went on,
Taylor’s brain activity began to increase. Her eyes fluttered. She made
mumbling noises, trying to talk. And finally, Taylor Hale, considered brain
dead by science, awoke from her coma. [Daniel Finney, Des Moines Register
“‘Hand of God’ wakes brain-injured girl from coma,” USA Today, May 13, 2015] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/05/13/hand-of-god-heals-iowa-girl/27274399/
***
[2056-1/4/21]
***
No comments:
Post a Comment