VIDEO: Father pleads for help in ER after daughter overdoses
EASTON, Md. - A father's plea for help in a Maryland emergency room was seemingly ignored as he tried to get medical attention for his daughter who had overdosed.
The incident was caught on camera and it is horrifying to watch. Warrington Baker took his 23-year-old daughter to the emergency room last week after she had overdosed, but Baker, who lives in Easton Maryland, became frantic and helpless when no one came to help. That is when he started taking video to document what was going on.
The heartbreaking video shows the critical moments as a Baker tried to get his daughter help and his panic as security officers just stand there. Baker told FOX 5 that his daughter, Kainique had been using heroin but was trying to get clean and had just been to her first day at a methadone clinic in Cambridge.
It was after the visit to the clinic, he says, that she started having trouble breathing and he took her straight to the ER at the University of Maryland shore medical center.
But once inside the emergency room for several minutes and no nurses or doctors came to see her that is when Baker began pleading for help. At one point in the video an officer puts his hand near her mouth and nose as if to check her breathing.
Baker said he was so upset and became even more frustrated as hospital staff didn't come to help his child. "I just felt like there was nothing I could do for her, they made me feel like I was going crazy," Baker told FOX 5's Laura Evans.
You can hear his frustration grow on camera after several more minutes pass. It's then that finally the doctors run into the waiting room. A nurse says "call code" and "code blue," then the medical team rushes Kainique back to be treated. In the video Baker can be heard becoming increasingly agitated and upset as he films. He tells FOX 5 he believes she stopped breathing and had to be resuscitated.
FOX 5 called the hospital to get their side of the story and tonight they released this statement:
"University of Maryland shore regional health takes the responsibility of caring for our communities very seriously and we regret any concerns on the part of our patient and her family. We are thoroughly evaluating the timeline and circumstances of this matter, and recognize that anxieties are often heightened in medical situations. We have begun a dialogue with the patient in an effort to address her specific needs and concerns. In respect of patient privacy, these conversations will be conducted directly with the patient."
Mr. Baker says the hospital called him three times on Tuesday, apologizing for what happened. He says all he wants is for the hospital to do better. And he just wants his daughter's health to improve and for her to be clean.
That was the whole reason for going to the methadone clinic in the first place.