Teen Out of ICU, But Still in Coma
Thursday, July 6, 2000
Sun Sentinel Section: LOCAL Page: 3B
By SHANNON O'BOYE Staff Writer
The 15-year-old boy who hanged himself last month at a shelter
for troubled youth has been moved out of the pediatric intensive
care unit at Broward General Medical Center, a hospital spokeswoman
said.
He is now listed in fair condition, but that does not mean he has
made a marked recovery, said David Fuchs, the attorney representing
the boy's parents, Shirley Finley and Walter Dumas.
"He's not OK," Fuchs said. "He's still in a coma, but he doesn't
need the care that a PICU would require."
The boy, Anthony Dumas, is still receiving heavy doses of pain
medication, Fuchs said. And doctors have told the family that the
longer the boy remains in a coma, the less likely he is to recover
from brain damage suffered on June 12 when he hanged himself by a
belt from his bunk bed at the Lippman Family Center in Oakland Park.
Three Lippman Center workers saw Dumas hanging, but none of them
took him down, according to a police report. They dialed 911 and
then snapped between four to six Polaroid pictures of him hanging
while waiting for authorities to arrive.
A police officer pulled the boy down from the bunk and
fire-rescue workers managed to revive him on the way to the
hospital, the police report said.
Fuchs and the boy's parents, Finley, 38, and Dumas, 34, are
scheduled to meet today with Dennis Siegel, the head of the Broward
State Attorney's sex crimes and child abuse unit, to go over what
the state has learned during its investigation.
In addition to the State Attorney's Office, the Department of
Juvenile Justice, the Broward Sheriff's Office and Lutheran Services
Florida, the Tampa-based agency that runs the Lippman Center, are
investigating the incident. The three workers on duty the night of
the incident have been suspended without pay and the Department of
Juvenile Justice has stopped placing children at the shelter.
The Lippman Center is a 28-bed shelter that houses runaways and
habitually truant and difficult-to-control youths. It is a
"non-secure facility,'' meaning the doors are not locked and
children are not stopped from leaving.
Anthony Dumas was sent to the center by a judge after he got into
a pushing match with his mother and she filed a domestic violence
charge against him. He arrived May 23. His parents said they had
their son arrested because they knew he needed help and a law
enforcement officer told them the only way to get him services was
to get him "into the system."
Shannon O'Boye can be reached at
soboye@sun-sentinel.com
or 954-356-4597.
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