From the Globe and Mail and CBS News in Toronto, Canada (April 9) - (CBS) A heart transplant between two baby girls in Canada had to be abandoned because one of the baby's continued to breath on her own after being removed from life support. Kaylee Wallace, 2 months, has a rare brain called Joubert Syndrome that affects motor functions and the ability to breathe. Believing their child would soon die, her parents decided to donate her heart to another little girl in need. But when they took her off life support, Kaylee continued to breathe on her own, despite warnings from doctors that she would not be able to survive without the help of a respirator. To read Not Dead Yet's analysis and response of this case, see here.
From the Los Angeles Times (April 9) - Blind pianist and singer Scott MacIntyre was eliminated from "American Idol" tonight. He received the lowest number of votes after Anoop Desai, and the four judges, although they said they had a 2-2 tie on whether to save MacIntyre, voted not to save him, which would have allowed him to remain on the show.
From the NY Daily News, (April 8) - A bus matron charged with leaving a severely disabled man on a freezing bus at a Brooklyn depot faces three years' probation, prosecutors said April 6. Linda Hockaday, 51, who pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor count in the case, also faces 100 hours of community service when she is sentenced April 22. An earlier story is here.
From CanWest News Service, (April 8) - Air Canada is challenging a deaf and blind man's contention that he should be allowed to fly without an attendant.The airline will argue in Federal Court that not allowing Burnaby resident Eddy Morten to fly alone is justified discrimination. Morten counters that he has a system for safe air travel with his service dog, he has been self-sufficient all his life, and that he has made many past trips on planes, trains and buses.
From the Chicago Tribune (April 8) - A Paris, Texas judge has refused to re-consider the 100-year prison sentence he gave to an 18-year-old teenager with an an IQ of 47 after he pleaded guilty to molesting a 6-year-old boy.
From the Dallas Morning News, (April 7) - An investigation of personnel records by the Dallas Morning News has found that the 11 Corpus Christi State School employees accused of staging “fight club” brawls between residents with intellectual disabilities were hired despite limited work experience, limited education and poor work histories.
From the Caller-Times in Corpus Christi, Texas, (April 4) - The sixth person charged in suspicion of staging fight-club style brawls between patients at Corpus Christi State School was arrested April 3 in South Carolina. US. Marshals Fugitive Task Force arrested D’Angelo Riley, 22, on a warrant for injury to a disabled person. Riley was taken into custody at 5:45 a.m. at a relative’s home in Charleston, S.C.
From the Examiner in Aurora, Colorado (April 3) - A lawsuit claims a developmentally disabled 5-year-old was regularly strapped into a chair in an Aurora school and that a teacher once refused to release her because she "had not been broken yet." Her family's attorney, Jack Robinson, says the girl has epilepsy and other impairments and didn't need to be restrained. Robinson says the girl, now 8 years old, Robinson says the girl, now 8 years old, is doing well in the Cherry Creek School District.From The Oregonian (April 3) - Telephone surveys of former students in every Oregon school district found that only about 1,150 of the 4,200 special education students who finished their high school education in 2006-07 spent the next year without getting a job that paid minimum wage or any post-secondary education.
From the Legal Intelligencer/www.law.com (April 3) - In what some say is the first decision of its kind, a federal judge has ruled that a sperm bank may be sued under product liability laws for failing to detect that a sperm donor had a genetic mutation. (h/t Patricia E Bauer)
