Baby buried without almost every organ; Parents to meet Alder Hey officials.Byline: LUCIE McFALL A COUPLE had to have their baby dug up to discover how many body parts had been taken in the Alder alder (ôl`dər), name for deciduous trees and shrubs of the genus Alnus of the family Betulaceae (birch family), widely distributed, especially in mountainous and moist areas of the north temperate zone and in the Andes. Hey hospital scandal. The exhumation revealed that almost every organ in Owen Williams's body had been removed. The discovery came at the end of a three-year saga which began with hospital managers insisting that their child was not caught up in the scandal. It ended with the exhumation of a coffin containing what parents Julie Wilkinson and Nick Williams For other persons named Nick Williams, see Nick Williams (disambiguation). Nick Williams (born August 2 1983 in Auckland, New Zealand) is a rugby union player who plays for North Harbour in the Air New Zealand Cup and for the Blues in the Super 14. describe as "skin and bones". Next to it was a separate casket containing almost all the child's organs, including the brain, heart, lungs, spleen spleen, soft, purplish-red organ that lies under the diaphragm on the left side of the abdominal cavity. The spleen acts as a filter against foreign organisms that infect the bloodstream, and also filters out old red blood cells from the bloodstream and decomposes , kidneys and liver. The couple, from Kensington Court, Winsford, Cheshire, buried their four-month-old son in January, 1999. He had been born with Down's syndrome and heart problems and died after two operations. They allowed a post-mortem because they wanted to know why Owen died. They were told that only two small samples had been retained. They buried their baby believing his body was complete, but after the scandal broke out they contacted Alder Hey. At first they were assured Owen was not involved, but in November, 1999, the family were told the heart had been retained. The family were given a casket containing the heart and went ahead with a second funeral service funeral service n → misa de cuerpo presente funeral service n → service m funèbre funeral service funeral n , placing the casket with Owen's body. But in March this year they were presented with a list of more body parts which had been discovered in a full-scale audit by hospital staff. The family organised the exhumation of Owen's grave to discover the true extent. They found Owen had been buried without any vital organs. Inside the second casket, which they had believed contained only the heart, they discovered the parts which had been removed. Miss Wilkinson, 38, said: "All we buried the first time was skin and bones. "Everything else was crammed cram v. crammed, cram·ming, crams v.tr. 1. To force, press, or squeeze into an insufficient space; stuff. 2. To fill too tightly. 3. a. To gorge with food. inside the second casket, even his tongue, voicebox and oesophagus oe·soph·a·gus n. Variant of esophagus. oesophagus see esophagus. oesophagus British spelling for esophagus, see there ." Mrs Wliams said: "We didn't take the decision to go ahead with an exhumation lightly. "When it was exhumed, we found the casket was packed full of Owen's organs and body parts. "We were also given 60 slides which had been taken and have had to organise a third burial." A spokeswoman for the Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital A children's hospital is a hospital which offers its services exclusively to children. The number of children's hospitals proliferated in the 20th century, as pediatric medical and surgical specialties separated from internal medicine and adult surgical specialties. NHS Trust National Health Service Trusts (NHS Trusts) provide many services of the National Health Service in England and Wales. They are not trusts in the legal sense but are in effect public sector corporations. confirmed the parents were initially given "limited" information about the organs retained. "Subsequently in March, during a meeting of the serious incident team, the parents were given additional details of what organs had been retained, returned to them and then buried. "The additional details were challenged by both the parents and the funeral directors and therefore the trust supported the exhumation and examination of the body by an independent pathologist pa·thol·o·gist n. A specialist in pathology who practices chiefly in the laboratory as a consultant to clinical colleagues. Pathologist . "The trust has contacted the parents and agreed to meet with them to discuss the issues that have been raised." CAPTION(S): TRAGIC: Parents Julie and Nick and their son Owen |
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