court ordered rabies shots

[wendy]

Mother, kids to get rabies shots
Deborah St. Charles says she will follow the judge's order to receive treatment.
April Hunt
Sentinel Staff Writer

August 23, 2006

As recently as Monday, Deborah St. Charles refused to get rabies shots for herself and two young sons, saying none of them were bitten or scratched when bats invaded their Winter Park apartment earlier this summer.

But within an hour of a court order Tuesday afternoon, St. Charles and her sons were on their way to start treatment.

The Department of Children & Families had taken the boys, ages 3 and 7, Monday night. The family was reunited after St. Charles agreed to the shots, a series of six shots over 28 days.

"To know that my kids are safe with me, I'm going to do this," said St. Charles, a customer-service worker. "Nobody can take care of my kids like I do."

St. Charles said she handled the situation herself when her older boy, Keimyon, spotted a bat in his bedroom at The Meadows subsidized-housing complex.

She swatted it down with a broom, then put a bucket over it and tossed it outside. That was at the end of July.

Last Wednesday, the Orange County Department of Health notified St. Charles that everyone in the home could have been exposed to rabies and needed the vaccine series to be safe.

"The problem with a bat is, it has such small fangs, you could have a bite and it will go unnoticed," said Bill Toth, who heads the department's epidemiology division. "And once the signs appear you're infected, there's a 99 percent chance of fatality."

Officials argued that, against those odds, the shots made sense for anyone in the home. Two of St. Charles' nephews, who were staying overnight, already have begun treatment.

But St. Charles said she refused mainly because she worried the shot would trigger a recurrence of a major health problem that her 3-year-old son, Elijah, suffered as an infant. Doctors never determined the cause of that illness.

Arguing that the treatment needed to begin as soon as possible, DCF accused St. Charles of medical neglect Monday and took the boys.

In a court hearing Tuesday, officials said their goal was only to ensure that they received proper care.

"We never wanted to separate them. But if she won't take care of them, we have to step up," DCF attorney Barbara Dirienzo said.

St. Charles had agreed to the shots before her court hearing. DCF had even allowed the family friend, who had cared for the boys overnight, to bring them to the Juvenile Justice Center so the family could begin treatment together.

At the last minute, though, St. Charles said she wanted a judge to hear her concerns. If a judge still said the shots were necessary, she would get them, she said.

After listening to 20 minutes of testimony, Circuit Judge James C. Hauser ordered the family to complete the treatment. If St. Charles misses any of the scheduled doctor visits, DCF will remove the boys again.

But as St. Charles explained to her sons outside the courtroom, while waiting to go to an emergency room, they would start and finish the treatment together.

"They just want to make sure you guys are protected," she told her sons. "I just wanted to make sure it was necessary. The judge said it is."

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