In Harm's Way: One boy's history of broken bones

Sunday, September 18, 2005

	Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette
	The circle in this X-ray highlights the break in Dillon Kindling's left clavicle. In 2001, just after Kindling turned 15, an aide at Southwood's residential treatment facility in Upper St. Clair knocked Kindling to the floor while trying to restrain him, breaking the youth's collarbone.

Dillon Kindling's first and only trip to juvenile court came after he threatened an older boy.

The offense wasn't serious enough by itself to get the irascible 14-year-old taken out of his home.

But Kindling also was truant and could not be controlled by his parents, mainly because of his psychological troubles, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder.

So both his probation officer and a caseworker for the Allegheny County Office of Children, Youth and Families asked the judge to put him in a place where he could get treatment.

In the end, his mother, Deborah Kindling, of McKees Rocks, said the attempt to treat her son made matters worse. "His arm looks like Frankenstein," she said. "The state really messed with my son."

It started with an incident at a Spectrum Family Network group home in East Liberty. A judge sent him there Aug. 31, 2000. Seven days later, his arm was broken in two places and his elbow was dislocated.

The only staff member in the Spectrum home that afternoon was Marshall Clark, who said in a deposition that he was able to work with the new boy. "Dillon was a good kid, but he was hyper. He was a real hyper kid."

Clark was indoors cooking dinner for the boys, who were outside playing basketball.

Kindling and another boy were pushing each other when Kindling fell, injuring his arm, Spectrum reported to the state Department of Public Welfare. "Upon getting up off the ground, he noticed that it had started to swell," Spectrum told the DPW.

Clark's story in the deposition is a little different. He said one of the boys called him to come outside. "I rushed to the patio. ... Dillon was lying on the patio, holding his arm."

The child had a compound fracture, a bloody break with bone protruding through skin. There's no way he stood up and "noticed swelling," his mother said.

Because he was alone, Clark had to load the other boys in the home's van and take them to the hospital so that he could be with Kindling, the boy's mother said.

Kindling returned to Spectrum with his arm in a cast. A few months later, with his arm out of the cast but troubles still to come, he was moved to Southwood's residential treatment facility in Upper St. Clair.

There, on May 12, 2001, the 5-foot-8, 150-pound youth turned 15.

Within a week of his birthday, Kindling would be injured again in a fight with a fellow resident. His left ring finger was broken.

Three days later, against medical advice, staff members allowed Kindling to play football. He fell and separated his shoulder.

Two days after that, Kindling got hurt again, this time at the hands of a staff member.

His finger in a splint, his shoulder in a sling, Kindling was taken to gym class, although he couldn't participate. He grew restless and slipped his arm out of the sling and threw a basketball. An aide, Darren Herrle, ordered him to quit it. Kindling kept it up.

He kicked a youth, who began screaming and waving his arms. Aides took that boy out of the gym but left Kindling there.

Kindling yelled at other youngsters, cursed at Herrle and kicked a door demanding to get out, according to Herrle's account in a deposition. Still, Herrle and another aide didn't call for help handling him.

In the deposition, Herrle said, at one point, Kindling threatened to kill him. "I backed away like a half step and he came toward me," Herrle said. He seized Kindling and pressed him into what the aide called a wall restraint. Kindling squirmed out.

"I immediately grabbed the same forearm I was using to hold him before and kind of swung him around and we kind of fell to the floor together," Herrle said.

That broke the boys's clavicle, his third major injury at Southwood in five days.

Southwood said in its report to the DPW, "Child had to be restrained to avoid further injury to an existing shoulder injury."

Kindling's mother hired lawyer Elizabeth Beroes to petition the court to let him come home. Beroes argued that the number of injuries Kindling had suffered at Southwood proved he wasn't safe there.

Common Pleas Judge Kim Clark agreed. "I don't think he should stay at Southwood," she said. "I don't think that's fair to anyone."

Kindling went home, received outpatient treatment and graduated from high school. He is 19 now and working. He never returned to the group homes that were supposed to help him overcome his problems.

His mother wouldn't countenance it. "Dillon was terribly brutalized under their care," she said.