Baby kidnapping costs hospital $600,000
Director of security also named in lawsuit
An Atlanta hospital has settled a lawsuit for a reported $600,000, four years after a baby was kidnapped from the facility. The mother’s attorney alleges the baby was kidnapped because the hospital had remarkably lax security that allowed nearly anyone to roam the halls unchallenged.
The kidnapping occurred in March 1993. The six-week-old infant was an inpatient at Hughes Spalding Children’s Hospital, a public hospital administered by the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority. The child was being treated for an abscess and infection and had been placed in the care of the local department of children’s services because his mother had been declared incompetent and was being treated at an inpatient mental facility.
The mother’s condition improved, and she most likely would have regained custody of the child, says Stanley Snellings, her attorney. The baby’s father is not known. The baby still has not been found, despite an extensive nationwide search.
Snellings filed a lawsuit on behalf of the mother against the hospital authority and the hospital’s director of security. The hospital settled for the full amount available in its insurance fund, Snellings says. The amount was confidential but reported elsewhere as $600,000, which Snellings did not deny.
Snellings makes these allegations of lax security at the hospital:
• Stairwells running the entire height of the hospital building were not monitored or alarmed. Once someone got into the stairwell, which anyone could do, that person could go to any floor of the hospital without alerting security. The baby’s room was located directly across the hall from a stairway entrance.
• A McDonald’s restaurant two floors below the child’s room created heavy traffic that would have provided cover for anyone slipping in and out of the stairwell with a baby.
• The hospital did not use any high-tech systems to prevent baby kidnapping, such as wrist bracelets that set off an alarm when a child is taken from the area.
A hospital spokesman did not return several calls asking for comments.
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