By Kathy Chaffin
kchaffin@salisburypost.com
Rowan County child welfare officials gathered with a state fatality reviewer Thursday morning to discuss the May 2 death of a 10-month-old baby.
John Weill, one of two reviewers for the state, opened the two-day review in the Hurley Room of Rowan Public Library by explaining its purpose. “The overall goal of the process, we are going to look at systems,” he said. “What worked well, what didn’t work so well …
“There’s not an objective to make a punitive finding about how this worked.”
Weill said child fatalities used to be reviewed at a desk in Raleigh. “I think they learned pretty quickly that that’s not the most effective way to do this,” he said.
It was legislation passed during Gov. Jim Martin’s term that mandated an on-site state child fatality review when the deceased child and its family had received child protective services from the local Social Services department within 12 months of the death.
In this case, the Rowan County Department of Social Services had worked with the family of Emmanuel Campusano Jr., according to Director Sandra Wilkes. The baby lived with his parents, Emmanuel Campusano Sr. and Tana Maria Mings, at 923 S. Caldwell St., according to the initial police report.
The couple has another child, a daughter who was 19 months old at the time of her brother’s death.
The baby was transported by ambulance to Rowan Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 12:37 p.m. CPR was administered on the baby en route to the emergency room and for 15 minutes after arrival.
Salisbury Police Chief Mark Wilhelm said at the time that there were no signs of trauma on the baby’s body. Emmanuel Campusano Sr. told police his son appeared to be fine when he left him and his sister at home with their mother to go shopping at about 10:30 a.m.
Campusano reported getting a call at 12:28 p.m. telling him that EMS had been called. The baby had been generally healthy, his father told police, though he had been born six weeks premature and suffered with fluid on his lungs.
An autopsy by the N.C. Medical Examiner’s Office in Charlotte showed “no anatomic cause of death” and confirmed “nonspecific findings of marked pulmonary edema,” according to Lt. Shelia Lingle of the Salisbury Police Department.
Even though the cause of death is still unclear, Lingle said there was nothing in the autopsy report to indicate that it was intentional. Neither was there anything to indicate that it was an accidental death that could have been prevented, she said, such as deaths attributed to unsafe sleeping conditions.
Lingle said toxicology tests conducted as part of the autopsy found no evidence of drugs in the baby’s body.
No charges were filed in the case. Lingle said Salisbury police had received no reports on the parents or had any other dealings with the Campusanos other than the fatality.
Unless charges are filed, Weill said a report on the Child Fatality Review will be presented at the next Community Child Protection Team meeting March 9.Local members of the state child fatality review include: Sandra Wilkes, representing the Department of Social Services; Arnold S. Chamberlain, representing the Community Child Protection Team; Leonard Wood of the Child Fatality Prevention Team; Susan Thomas, a school nurse representing the medical profession; Wanda Allen, representing prevention specialists; and Sheriff George Wilhelm, representing law enforcement.
In child fatality reviews, Weill said the families’ interactions with other agencies in the county and when applicable, outside of the county, are also taken into consideration. Though the Department of Social Services serves as a gatekeeper for the reviews, “this isn’t a DSS review,” he said.
Weill said the Child Fatality Review Team would spend most of Thursday reading through the records and discussing how the system had worked. Members would also review the family history and how the family had interacted in the community, he said.
As for today’s proceedings, Weill said team members would interview social workers involved in the case and other key officials, including perhaps, someone from the medical examiner’s office and people involved with the family. “It varies from county to county as we identify who will be valuable to the team,” he said.
Three social workers involved in the case and their supervisor were at the conference Thursday morning. When one social worker asked if she could be present for the entire proceedings, Weill said he would rather the social workers not be there other than for individual interviews.Weill said he would take the findings of the review and any recommendations resulting from them and compile them into a report. Wilkes said he would send it to team members for review before presenting it to the Community Child Protection Team.
Once the report is finalized, Weill said it would also be turned over to state and local officials including the State Child Fatality Prevention Team, the Attorney General’s Office and the N.C. General Assembly. At that point, the report will be a matter of public record and therefore, available to the media.In the past, he said findings of child fatality reviews have led to the establishment of study panels, changes in legislation and appropriation of funds in an effort to prevent future fatalities.
Depending on the findings, Weill said local agencies involved in the case might also make changes to prevent similar fatalities in the future. For example, in a review done in western North Carolina two and a half years ago, he said three of the four agencies involved adopted changes recommended in the final report “and ran with them.”
“One agency felt like they were doing OK where they were,” he said.
Weill said he understood that the review was emotional and difficult for the people directly involved in the case, but said that was not its purpose. “We don’t want to make anybody suffer,” he said.