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Heartbroken Buncrana couple speak
out:
08.12.09
"We don't want another
family to go through this"
by Linda McGrory
A HEARTBROKEN Buncrana couple have spoken of their
cot death tragedy and how it was compounded by a
five-hour minibus journey with their dead baby for
an autopsy.
Chris McFadden and his fiancée Toni Stemp said they
hoped, by speaking out, they might prevent the same
trauma for another family in Donegal where there is
no infant pathologist.
Baby Shae died in his sleep in the early hours of
Tuesday, November 24. His parents described how the
placid two-week old baby was unusually restless
after his last feed at 4am and how they cuddled him
to sleep. |
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Chris, 29, discovered
the motionless infant when he awoke at 8.40am and
described his frantic efforts to resuscitate him. A
local GP arrived at the family home a short time
later and pronounced the baby dead.
"When the garda sergeant said to me that we had to
go to the hospital, I thought he meant Letterkenny
Hospital," said Chris, an unemployed construction
worker. |
"It was a shock to then
find out that we had to go to Dublin because there
was no pathologist to do an infant post mortem in
Letterkenny. It's a crazy system. Even if we had to
go as far as Belfast, it would only have been an
hour and a half away."
Toni, 22, described how she wouldn't let her baby
son out of her arms until she finally had to put him
into a coffin for the long journey to the capital.
The couple who live in the quiet Carrick Fern estate
on the outskirts of Buncrana, sat side-by-side in
the minibus with the tiny coffin resting on both
their laps. |
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"We left Buncrana
before 11am and didn't get to the hospital in
Crumlin until about 4.15pm," said Toni, who was
still recovering from a caesarean section. "All the
way down, on the minibus, were getting phone calls
from different relatives about what flowers and what
other arrangements we wanted for the funeral. I
couldn't think of those things at the time." |
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The tragic case has
prompted Donegal coroner Dr John Madden to demand a
resolution to the "extremely unfair" system
currently in place.
He revealed that the pathologist at Our Lady's
Hospital in Crumlin has informed him the hospital
will entertain no more requests for infant autopsies
from Donegal in future. Dr Madden warned that if
Temple Street Hospital decides the same course,
"there will be no-one who can do them".
Essex-born Toni says the problem makes her concerned
for any future cases. "What happens, God forbid, if
a child is harmed on purpose and there is nobody to
do a post mortem on the body to find out what
happened to them?" she asked.
Meanwhile, Cllr Rena Donaghey called for a State
paediatric pathologist who can travel to cases of
sudden infant death in counties, such as Donegal,
that don't have the service and are long distances
from counties that do. The nearest infant
pathologists to Donegal are located in Galway and
Dublin. Cllr Donaghey also called for an interim
cross-border arrangement to allow Donegal families
avail of the services in the North.
"As if it wasn't enough that this young couple were
trying to cope with their grief, they then had to
endure a five-hour journey with their child's body
to Dublin. They had to stay overnight in Dublin and
didn't get home to arrange the funeral until late
the following night. This is the second time in as
many years this has happened in the Inishowen area
and something has to be done about it urgently,"
said Cllr Donaghey.
Chris and Toni, who have a three year old daughter
Alix and who are due to marry next May, are full of
praise for the staff at Our Lady's Hospital in
Crumlin. They were told everything that would be
done as part of the autopsy while they also received
family accommodation, chaplaincy and refreshments.
"We were forgetting to eat and they brought us tea
and sandwiches on a number of occasions. The
hospital chaplain was also very good and sat with us
for hours," said Toni.
And the couple treasure an album given to them by
the hospital into which the pathology team had
placed the tiny ink handprints and footprints of
baby Shae.
"We also took a lock of Shae's blonde hair before he
was buried," added Toni. The young parents are
satisfied their baby's death falls into the
"baffling" category of cot death. "He just fell
asleep and didn't wake up," said Chris. They say
they are now living for their three year old. "We've
told Alix that Shae has gone to the North Pole to
help Santa make presents. We go to the cemetery
every morning and every evening and we keep a bottle
of bubbles at the graveside for Alix to blow to Shae,"
said Toni. |
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