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Thursday, November 28, 2013

Thanksgiving: Rare Bone-Disease Diagnosis Ends Abuse Case Against Father of Delicate Infant



A Woodlands, Texas family was torn apart for a year, beginning in August 2012, when Andrew Huger was changing his infant daughter’s diaper and her leg snapped in his hand.  KHOU reports that she was rushed to the hospital, where doctors diagnosed multiple other bone fractures in various stages of healing and prosecutors charged systemic abuse.

Fortunately for Andrew (and his daughter), no one, his wife, their pediatrician, the nanny, had seen any signs of abuse.  The father was in and out of court until the family was told of another mother who had been charged with abuse for a similar fact pattern until her baby had been diagnosed with an extremely rare genetic condition, called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) in which the bones and joints are extremely fragile and handling a baby like a normal parent will cause severe damage.

The baby was tested, found to have EDS, and the father cleared.  They can give thanks, both that a loving, innocent father was cleared of wrongdoing, and that their child has been diagnosed and can be treated (or at least handled with extreme care).

The father was quoted, at home now, relieved: "Right now it's just a joy to be back home and have the house," Andrew said. "That's far outweighing the anger. The happiness to have my girls back."  Though, it’s hard to fault CPS or the doctors, when presented a baby with multiple fractures, for not taking immediate action and suspecting an extremely rare genetic disorder that neither parent had heard of before.  CPS has a job to do, and had to do it, to protect the child.  CPS, unfortunately, knows of enough evil in the world to act when faced with a broken baby.  Thankfully, this wasn’t an abused child, just a very, very delicate one.

Full article and embedded video: http://www.khou.com/news/local/Rare-bone-disease-causes-dad-to-be-falsely-charged-with-child-abuse-232445631.html

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