Hospital threatens mother after son pens criticism in school newspaper: lawyers
After a 15-year-old criticized his local hospital, a free speech watchdog says the hospital threatened to sue the teen's mother. Here's why they say it amounts to censorship:
A young Georgia couple has filed a second lawsuit against a doctor who they say posted images of their decapitated baby on social media.
After 20-year-old mother, Jessica Ross, and 21-year-old dad, Treveon Isaiah Taylor Sr. accused OB-GYN Tracey St. Julian of using too much force and decapitating their son during delivery at Southern Regional Medical Center in July, they are now filing a lawsuit against a second doctor, Dr. Jackson Gates, accusing him of posting the graphic autopsy pictures on social media.
"After all of the abuse suffered by this young couple, unfortunately, Dr. Gates continued to perpetuate it, their abuse, by posting both photos and video of their decapitated child on social media, namely Instagram," family attorney Rod Edmond told FOX 5 Atlanta.
"This is diabolical. There is something wrong," he added.
Jessica Ross, 20, right, at a news conference with her lawyers announcing a lawsuit against a Georgia hospital after her baby was allegedly decapitated during delivery. (WAGA)
In the lawsuit, the devastated couple accused Gates of taking $2,500 to perform an autopsy on the baby, then posting a full-face picture and videos of his organs on Instagram.
In videos on his Instagram account, Dr. Gates defended his actions, saying that anything he posted on social media was for educational purposes.
"I want you to hear this clearly, I will never divulge the identity or disclose the identity of any live patients or any deceased patients that come for my care," Dr. Gates said in an Instagram post.
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Attorneys say the young couple feels betrayed, and believes Dr. Gates used them to increase his own notoriety.
"Dr. Gates consciously waived his duty to this young couple. He traded his duty to them on exchange for likes and followers on Instagram," attorney Cory Lynch told FOX 5 Atlanta.
The baby’s mother and father, Jessica Ross and Treveon Isaiah Taylor Sr., attended a news conference in Atlanta where their attorneys announced the lawsuit against Dr. Tracey St. Julian and Southern Regional Medical Center, a hospital in Riverdale, Georgia, where Ross went on July 9 to have her son. (AP File/Sudhin Thanawa)
In the couple's previous lawsuit, filed in July, they accused Dr. Julian for using too much force during the birth of their baby.
"In the process of trying to deliver this baby pulled on the head and neck so hard, and manipulated them so hard, that the bones in the baby's skull face and neck were broken," Edmond said during a news conference in July.
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Eventually, Dr. Julian resorted to a STAT Cesarean section. The baby's body and legs were delivered at 12:11 a.m. and the baby's head was delivered vaginally. The lawsuit alleged that the Southern Regional Medical Center in Riverdale, Georgia failed to tell Ross and her family about the decapitation.
It also alleges that the hospital discouraged Ross and Taylor from seeking an autopsy, instead telling them to have their son cremated in lieu of taking him to a funeral home.
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"They did everything in their power to not let the family know what happened," Cory Lynch, an attorney for Ross.
Both lawsuits are pending for the couple.
Fox News' Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
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