Baby born, pronounced dead, then found alive

A woman went into premature labor early Thursday and gave birth to a baby in a Lodi home, where paramedics found it and pronounced the newborn dead.

But the baby was alive, which Lodi Memorial Hospital employees learned when they heard the child crying in a storage area where the baby had been placed, Lodi police said.

The baby boy is now hospitalized in stable condition, Officer Dale Eubanks said. The mother, meanwhile, is facing two felony counts of child abuse after tests showed methamphetamine and marijuana in the baby's blood, Eubanks said.

Jessica Gonzalez, 28, of Galt, was 34 weeks pregnant and was at a home on Stockton Street south of Lodi Avenue when someone in the house called 911 at 5:13 a.m., Eubanks said. Firefighters, who also respond to medical calls, were dispatched at 5:17 a.m. and arrived at 5:21 a.m., Fire Chief Michael Pretz said.

An American Medical Response ambulance arrived at 5:20 a.m., where paramedics found Gonzalez unconscious on the bathroom floor, Eubanks said. They found the newborn baby in the toilet and checked his vital signs while firefighters took the woman from the bathroom to the ambulance, he said.

Paramedics initially thought the baby was dead, and they placed him and some towels in a pink wash basin they found in the bathroom, then placed the basin in a box, Eubanks said. Mother and baby were then taken to the hospital.

At the hospital, an employee was checking on the baby's body when she heard a "weak cry," Eubanks said. Hospital workers immediately started treatment on the baby boy.

A hospital administrator refused to comment, even on general practices not relating to specific patients.

San Joaquin County Sheriff's investigators were initially called because Gonzalez lives in their jurisdiction, and then Lodi police were notified a little after 8 a.m. The case remains under investigation and AMR officials did not return multiple calls for comment.

AMR, which is the county's only ambulance service, was called in April 2006 to a Lodi incident in which a woman was struck by a train.

A paramedic pronounced the woman dead without even touching her, but she was later determined to still be alive. She had massive injuries and died two days later.

The county's Emergency Medical Services Department launched an investigation and determined that the paramedic was at fault in pronouncing the woman dead. Two paramedics and an emergency medical technician underwent a "performance improvement plan," and an AMR spokesman said at the time that the employees were experienced and expected to return to work.

Dan Burch, the county's emergency services administrator, said Thursday that his office is aware of the incident involving the baby. He said such things happen nationwide, though Burch could not immediately recall any such incident happening in San Joaquin County.

Like the train death, the county will investigate Thursday's incident, Burch said.

Detectives are still carrying on their own investigation but they had already talked to the District Attorney's Office and plan to file charges against Gonzalez, Eubanks said.

On Feb. 23, Gonzalez was about two weeks pregnant when she was arrested for felony possession of a controlled substance. She entered a deferred entry of judgment program in March, a day after she entered the same program for a misdemeanor drug case from October 2005.

The deferred entry of judgment process allows first-time drug offenders to complete a supervised drug treatment program. If an offender completes it, a probation officer sends a letter to the judge, who then dismisses the case without a plea being entered, said Deputy District Attorney Patricia Rieta-Garcia.

A subsequent drug-related arrest results in a violation of the treatment program, said Rieta-Garcia, who is not currently involved in Gonzalez' case. However, a violator can then ask to enter another treatment program, which allows three failures before a jail sentence.

Contact reporter Layla Bohm at layla@lodinews.com.

Reader Feedback

Lodian wrote on Oct 16, 2007 1:47 PM:

" to: "TO: listen": Is this from your new conspiracy theory? Okay sure... there is only one person that posts on these boards. A little paranoid, aren't you. "

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Baby born, pronounced dead, then found alive

Mother faces 2 felony counts after drugs discovered in boy's blood, police say

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