From The Boston Globe:The answers to many questions about the July death of 15-year-old Fernando Vargas (pictured) sit in two nondescript cardboard boxes in Minneapolis. Two months after the teen's passing, the boxes have not been opened.
Vargas died when a two-hour power outage in the East Boston housing project where he lived silenced his ventilator. A preliminary investigation by Boston police investigators found that the backup battery to his ventilator failed. Then, detectives packed up the equipment - despite the questions looming about it - and it was returned to the Minnesota company that manufactured it.
Since then, the boxes have sat in the offices of Pulmonetics Systems, a division of Cardinal Health, while officials from the Suffolk district attorney's office, lawyers for the Vargas family, and company officials have negotiated how to evaluate the equipment. Officials at Pulmonetics said they plan to open the boxes Sept. 24.
In the meantime, Vargas's family has been waiting for answers.
"It's already two months, but it seems like yesterday," Ariel Acevedo said of his stepson's death. "We want to know the truth."
Vargas died early in the morning on July 18 in his bedroom of his parents' Orient Heights apartment. The youth, who had been relying on a ventilator since 2004, lived with his mother, stepfather, and a constant personal care attendant. Vargas had several disabilities since birth, including cerebral palsy, mental retardation, and seizures. Because he was unable to talk or move without help, his ventilator was his lifeline. He was tethered to it nearly 24 hours a day.Exactly what happened during the power outage remains unknown.
The police investigation was only preliminary, but authorities allowed the equipment to be returned to New England Home Therapies, the MassHealth contractor who supplied it to the family.
Police returned the equipment despite widespread reports about a 2004 recall of 10,000 similar devices made by the same company. A Camden, N.J., couple had sued the company after their 5-year-old son died, allegedly due to a ventilator malfunction, and settled the case for $5,000. A Hopedale, Ill., couple is suing the company, alleging that a failed ventilator caused the death of their 2-year-old son.
Donna Gaidamak, a spokeswoman for Cardinal Health, Pulmonetics' parent company, said yesterday that it has not unsealed the boxes since receiving them via UPS. She said the evaluation is expected to take hours, or possibly days, and will be videotaped from start to finish. She also said the company invited representatives of the Vargas family, the Suffolk district attorney's office, and New England Home Therapies to attend.
Delays have been due to scheduling issues, she said."None . . . have been opened," she said. "We didn't want to do anything to compromise it."
The results of the evaluation will not be made public by the company, she said.
Several lawyers who specialize in medical malpractice have criticized the decision by police and the district attorney's office to hand over the equipment to the manufacturer.Michael E. Mone, a Boston product liability lawyer, has since agreed to represent the Vargas family. He said yesterday that the family has not taken any legal action, but that his office will send a medical technology specialist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to oversee the evaluation in Minneapolis.
"From a purely logistical view, we would have preferred it stay in Boston. It would have been easier," Mone said in an interview last week.
Assistant District Attorney Josh Wall has said that police and prosecutors gave the device to the company so trained engineers at Pulmonetics Systems could confirm that the ventilator shut off during the power outage and determine why.
Jake Wark, a spokesman for the district attorney's office, said yesterday that they would not send a representative to the evaluation. We "will be reviewing a meticulous documentation of the forensic evidence," Wark said. Some delays, he said, were due to scheduling conflicts and questions about who would attend on behalf of the Vargas family.
Vargas's mother, Ilia Torres, and stepfather, Acevedo, will not be there. Acevedo said Torres, will be in school, learning to become a licensed massage therapist. She hopes to work with disabled children.
Acevedo said he and Torres met yesterday with officials from the William Carter School in Boston, where Vargas was enrolled, to begin a memorial fund.
"We came out of the school crying," Acevedo said. "We are devastated, and we are missing him. We are still in grief.