It didn't take long after Maya Kowalski won $261 million in damages from Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital for another hospital to jump headfirst into the frying pan. Children's Healthcare of Atlanta is currently in the hot seat after taking custody of baby Emma Hernandez when her mother brought her in for a swollen leg. Only three months old at the time in June, Emma needed medical care and got a criminal investigation instead. Jeff Charles at RedState has the story.
Matt and Takki met through an online service over a decade ago in New York City, where they began dating and later married. Matt was working as a newspaper photographer, and Takki was a live-in nanny from Thailand who worked for a police chief.
They later moved to Georgia and decided to start a family. They have two daughters, a four-year-old named Arya and a nine-month-old named Emma. The situation began in June when Takki took Emma to the pediatrician because she noticed that she had a swollen leg. Soon after, she found herself accused of child abuse and neglect.
The pediatrician examined Emma’s injuries and suggested that the parents take her to the Children’s Hospital [sic] of Atlanta (CHOA) for X-rays. The examination found that Emma’s ribs were fractured. The doctor immediately determined that Emma was a victim of child abuse, and Takki was arrested on four counts, including child cruelty and aggravated battery.
The authorities took Emma and Arya and placed them with Takki’s sister and brother-in-law. They had Takki sign a document relinquishing custody to the state, but she believed she was only consenting to have her sister take care of the child after she was discharged from the hospital.
About two weeks later, the police showed up at the Hernandez’s home to arrest Takki. She called her sister to tell her about the arrest and briefly spoke with Arya before heading to jail. During another call from the jail, Takki spoke with her sister and daughter for the last time. She was incarcerated for three days. As a condition of her bond agreement, Takki is not allowed to see or communicate with any of her family members, including her husband and children, who have not seen or talked to her since June.
RedState also reported about two specialists the family hired to testify in court who found that baby Emma most likely suffers from a bone disease due to a severe Vitamin D deficiency that most likely caused the injuries. The juvenile court judge ignored their testimony and sided with the hospital's "child abuse pediatrician" Dr. Emmanuel Pena, who is not a bone specialist and who witnesses say did not bring any evidence with him to court to prove that the injuries were from abuse.
At Takki’s first hearing, two medical professionals, a pathologist and a radiologist, both of whom had examined Emma’s records, testified that the child showed signs of underlying issues such as a metabolic bone condition or neonatal rickets, both of which could lead to easily broken bones. Matt told RedState that the medical experts pointed out that the hospital’s doctors “clearly didn’t do anywhere near enough testing to rule out medical underlying problems based on the reports he was given.”
The pathologist’s report noted that CHOA’s “diagnoses of abusive injury was made and confirmed almost immediately, based solely on the radiographic findings” and that there did not appear “to have been an expectation that any other laboratory studies would support any explanation other than inflicted abusive injury.”
I interviewed Matt Hernandez on my YouTube channel this week. The interview is heartbreaking. We learned right after that show that Forsyth County, Ga., had also indicted Matt with felony child abuse allegations. The arrest warrant was issued, and Matt and his attorney are working out the details of his surrender. The judge in the criminal case has forbidden Matt and Takki to communicate or live together. This has left Takki homeless. Lawyers PJ Media spoke to said they'd never heard of such a bond condition.
There is plenty of evidence in this case to show that Forsyth County rushed to judgment and did not do basic due diligence to discover the true cause of the baby's injuries. The Hernandez's perfectly healthy three-year-old Arya was also taken from them and is deteriorating in foster care. “She used to love to dance and swim,” Matt told RedState. “I have a recording of her saying that she doesn’t want to swim or dance anymore until she comes home.”
Not only do medical experts believe that the hospital is mistaken, but the children's temporary foster mom has also come forward to testify for the family that the baby needs medical intervention and not protective custody from the state. Jennifer Williams, a veteran foster parent who has served her community for thirteen years, provided five days of respite care for the Hernandez children, and she immediately noticed that something was wrong with the baby. She wrote an email to the case worker on August 9 telling her of her concerns.
One, I wish you had given us a heads-up that Emma had very recent fractures in her leg and ribs. My family is always careful when handling babies, but I believe having this information would have had us be extra careful with her. I found out about her recent injuries on Saturday when I shared some concerns with [foster mom] that my husband and I had regarding Emma. The concerns we have are: Both of her arms, legs, and wrists seem to be abnormal in the joint area. Her skull also has some odd areas/shapes to it. The whites of her eyes are not white...they are blueish/grey. It may not be things people tend to recognize right away as Emma is such a beautiful and happy baby. However, we have personal experience with these issues in a baby. A few years ago during one of my photography sessions with a new family, the parents explained to me their baby had a bone disease. She had fractures at birth so we missed our newborn session. She came to me at almost 5 months old. That baby held herself VERY similar to how Emma holds herself ()her joints in arms, legs, and wrists.) The baby also had blueish/grey in what should be the whites of her eyes. Their baby was diagnosed with Osteogenesis Imperfecta. It's also known as Brittle Bone Disease. It's a genetic disorder that ranges from mild to severe. Seeing Emma reminded me so much of this baby. I told [foster mom] about my concerns and then she told me about the recent fractures. I highly suggest Emma receive genetic testing (that is how this disease and other similar bone diseases are diagnosed) by a specialist because it can affect the organs too and it is a lifelong condition...Unexplained fractures are a huge sign though. Plus the skull being shaped abnormally is also associated with this disease. Hopefully, CHOA will think to do this on their own, but I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't and needed it to be requested from the state.
Email sent to #ForsythDFACS case worker about Emma Hernandez and the obvious signs of a medical condition by her former foster mother Jennifer Williams, a true hero. Read it and weep. The county went forward with child abuse charges anyway. #HernandezFamily #MedicalKidnap pic.twitter.com/ulHkeHKWWQ
— Megan Fox (@MeganFoxWriter) December 13, 2023
The response Williams received confused her since the permanent foster mother had told her the county was alleging physical child abuse. Not believing that the county was going to do those tests, Williams called the Hernandez family and ended up testifying for them in court. But she says what happened there beggared belief.
The judge ignored all exculpatory evidence that doctors, character witnesses, and Williams's own eyewitness experience presented and sided with the hospital child abuse doctor, Pena, who she said brought no reports, no test results, and no evidence with him to court. Worse, Williams says she overheard a DFACS supervisor tell an employee that they were moving forward with the termination of parental rights.
Listen to the interview with Williams below.
The Hernandez family is facing unbelievable odds. Their relatives are being denied kinship opportunities without explanation. Matt and Takki are facing felony child abuse charges for which they will most likely not get to trial for a full year while their children will be held from them unless some miracle happens and the DA drops the charges. I'm calling for all whistleblowers within Forsyth County DFACS to come forward. I will protect my sources. Email me at [email protected] with any evidence you have to exonerate the Hernandez family.
This family did not deserve what the CHOA and child welfare have done to them. They deserved a basic standard of care at a hospital that has sworn to heal and not harm. At the very least, the hospital should have gone to great lengths to rule out all other possibilities before signing off on child abuse as an explanation. They did not do that. If hospitals continue to behave this way in bad faith and treat parents as criminals, what parent in their right mind would bring a child to the ER? And what are we supposed to do instead? This is an outrageous and unacceptable situation that cannot continue.
Consider also this: If someone at JHACH had blown the whistle in the early days when Pinellas County, Fla., and the colluding doctors at JHACH were engaging in the same reckless behavior, Beata Kowalski might still be alive. Don't let another unspeakable tragedy befall this family if you have the means to stop it. Speak up. An entire family's liberty and lives are at stake.
I have reached out to many officials in Forsyth County for comment and will be continuing to report on this story in the coming weeks.
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