Mother charged with manslaughter after 10-year-old daughter dies from diabetic medical emergency

Stock image KIRKLAND, Washington — A 10-year-old girl with Type 1 diabetes died after falling into a coma during a summer road trip with her family and now her mother is accused of delaying critical medical care. Lloydina McAllister, 42, has been arrested and charged with first-degree manslaughter following a months-long investigation into the death of her daughter. She is being held at the King County Correctional Facility on $1 million bail. The case began July 24, when Child Protective Services contacted Kirkland police after the woman brought her deceased daughter to a Tacoma hospital, according to a news release from the Kirkland Police Department. McAllister “failed to provide life-saving care for her child, despite substantial education and training on the life-threatening risks of prolonged periods of high blood sugar when a child has Type 1 Diabetes,” a charging document says. The girl, her siblings, her mother and her mother’s boyfriend set out on July 17 for a trip to the Oregon–California border. The day before, her insulin pump was already showing high blood glucose readings, and she had been vomiting — a sign of diabetic ketoacidosis, according to the probable cause filing. The group drove to Northern California before turning around for an approximately nine-hour drive back to bring the girl to the hospital in Tacoma, court documents say. On the morning of July 18, the girl’s mother texted her own mother — an employee at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma — saying she planned to bring the child in because she was in diabetic ketoacidosis, according to charging documents. “I’m bring[ing her] in she is DKA we was on way to California but she was taking her pump out,” the message allegedly read. When the family arrived at the Tacoma hospital that afternoon, the girl had likely been dead for several hours, the documents state. Investigators noted that rigor mortis had already set in, leaving her body stiff in the back seat where she had been riding alongside her siblings. According to the filings, the child’s mother drove roughly 714 miles to Tacoma, passing more than two dozen hospitals along the way. Cell phone data showed she never called 911. The mother told police during an interview that she did not stop at another hospital or call 911 because her parenting plan with the girl’s father prohibited her from taking the child out of state. “She stated she did not know what the consequences would be if (the girl’s) father was notified that she took (the girl) out of the state without permission,” the probable cause filing stated. Investigators say the girl died from prolonged diabetic ketoacidosis and police ultimately concluded the lack of medical intervention contributed to the girl’s death. McAllister pleaded not guilty to the charge and her trial is scheduled to begin next month.The post Mother charged with manslaughter after 10-year-old daughter dies from diabetic medical emergency appeared first on East Idaho News.
Source: eastidahonews.com