Author Topic: Baby locked up at Honolulu airport dies  (Read 3397 times)

RadioFreeSeaLab

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Baby locked up at Honolulu airport dies
« on: February 20, 2008, 05:26:45 AM »
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2008/Feb/13/ln/hawaii802130417.html
Quote
Luaipou Futi and a nurse banged on a locked door at Honolulu International Airport Friday morning and begged for medical help for Futi's 14-day-old son, who had flown here from American Samoa for heart surgery and was becoming distressed in the warm room.

According to Futi's attorney, from the other side of the door, the women heard voices telling them to remain calm.

After 30 minutes in the room, Futi, her son, Michael Tony Futi, and the traveling nurse, Arizona Veavea, were released, attorney Rick Fried said.

City paramedics took Michael to Kaiser Permanente's Moana-lua Medical Center, but he died later that morning. Emergency Services Department officials said they received a call at 6:10 a.m. and the child was taken to Kaiser Moanalua in critical condition.

Autopsy results are pending.

At Fried's Bishop Street offices yesterday, Futi spoke through a translator, Simamao Nofoa, who said, "She was so happy  the minute she got on that plane  because she knew her baby was coming here ... They were the first ones out of the plane. If they would let them come immediately, her baby would have still been here. Her son would have still been alive. She's heartbroken. She can't eat. She can't sleep. ... She's traumatized."

It should have only taken 10 to 15 minutes to get Michael from the airport to Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children, where he was scheduled to be hospitalized on Friday and examined for a probable heart operation, Fried said.

But immigration officials detained Michael, his mother and Veavea, apparently believing there was "some problem with the visa waiver form for the mother," Fried said. In fact, Fried said, all the travel documents were in order.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials declined comment yesterday.

DOCUMENTS DISPLAYED

Fried showed the media documents yesterday, including one from U.S. Customs and Border Protection with the word "APPROVAL" in large type and a handwritten note that "Luaipou Futi may travel and stay for duration of sons (sic) treatment."

While in the Homeland Security room, "Arizona was very concerned and pacing back and forth, wondering when they were coming," Fried said. "After about 30 minutes in this warm, locked room, the baby starts to have problems with his oxygen. ... We're way past the time when this baby would have been in good hands at Kapi'olani. ... The door is locked. They cannot get out."

When they were first detained, Veavea, who speaks fluent English, explained to Homeland Security officials that Michael needed to get medical treatment, the lawyer said, and suggested that officials release her and Michael.

But officials detained all of them.

"Even if they had a valid cause for holding the mother of the baby ... there is absolutely no basis for holding the baby or the baby's nurse, who traveled with no luggage," Fried said, adding "the baby and the nurse are naturalized American citizens and have a U.S. passport."

Yesterday, Fried served notice with the federal government that he intends to file a lawsuit over Michael's death.

Jim Kosciuk, spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection office in Honolulu, declined to respond to Fried's account of Michael's death yesterday.

"With any potential legal action or pending litigation, we don't make comments," Kosciuk said.

UNEXPECTED BABY

Michael was the fourth child of Tony, 40, and Luaipou Futi, 38, who have two teenagers and adopted a third child when they thought they could no longer conceive.

Then Michael was born by Caesarean section on Jan. 25.

"Several days later, it was noticed that there was a heart murmur. ... The baby had a hole in his heart. (Surgery to repair the defect) is not available to be performed in Samoa," Fried said.

Doctors in American Samoa told Fried that with proper medical care he was expected to live a long life, he said.

"The long-term prognosis for this baby was good."

Officials at Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital in American Samoa had made arrangements for Michael to be hospitalized at Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children, Fried said.

Futi, her son and Veavea arrived around 5:30 a.m. Friday morning after a nearly five-hour Hawaiian Airlines flight, he said.

During the flight, the boy was hooked up to an oxygen tank.

Later, inside the locked room, Michael's condition worsened. Futi and Veavea began screaming to call 911, Fried said, "and the people outside are saying, 'Stay calm, relax.' "

After another five minutes, the door opened and someone helped perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the baby, he said.

Another 10 minutes passed before paramedics arrived, he said, and eight minutes later they took Michael to the medical center.

"By then, it was probably too late to help," Fried said. "We had a delay of probably an hour when this baby should have left the airport. It's our position that t

mtnbkr

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Re: Baby locked up at Honolulu airport dies
« Reply #1 on: February 20, 2008, 05:36:56 AM »
They should've crossed our Southern border in the middle of the night...

Thanks DHS, you've "protected" us from the hordes of invading infants.

We treat children coming here from Iraq to get medical care with more compassion.

Chris

seeker_two

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Re: Baby locked up at Honolulu airport dies
« Reply #2 on: February 20, 2008, 07:52:54 AM »
They should've crossed our Southern border in the middle of the night...

Thanks DHS, you've "protected" us from the hordes of invading infants.

We treat children coming here from Iraq to get medical care with more compassion.

Chris

We treat terrorists coming into Gitmo with more compassion.....absolutely disgusting....and typical of Chertoff's goons.....
Impressed yet befogged, they grasped at his vivid leading phrases, seeing only their surface meaning, and missing the deeper current of his thought.

Ned Hamford

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Re: Baby locked up at Honolulu airport dies
« Reply #3 on: February 20, 2008, 08:10:44 AM »
What?  Putting min wage earning HS drop outs in charge of our national security is a bad idea?

I would like more out of the box thinking and less locking people in a box.
Improbus a nullo flectitur obsequio.

LadySmith

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Re: Baby locked up at Honolulu airport dies
« Reply #4 on: February 20, 2008, 08:24:24 AM »
This is incredibly sad. Hopefully it'll generate enough outrage to change things.
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jnojr

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Re: Baby locked up at Honolulu airport dies
« Reply #5 on: February 20, 2008, 09:38:53 AM »

We treat terrorists coming into Gitmo with more compassion.....absolutely disgusting....and typical of Chertoff's goons.....

As The Skull would say, we need to grow up and get used to it.

Strings

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Re: Baby locked up at Honolulu airport dies
« Reply #6 on: February 20, 2008, 11:20:01 AM »
Ladysmith, I'm really begining to question if things CAN be changed anymore...

LadySmith

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Re: Baby locked up at Honolulu airport dies
« Reply #7 on: February 20, 2008, 11:38:44 AM »
Ladysmith, I'm really begining to question if things CAN be changed anymore...
Oh man, Strings, are we that far gone?
I hope things can be changed, but you're speaking to my fear that they really and truly won't.  sad
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Strings

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Re: Baby locked up at Honolulu airport dies
« Reply #8 on: February 20, 2008, 11:54:27 AM »
Unless there's massive downsizing and changes in the bureaucracies that run America, we're doomed.

 I've seen MANY cases of child abuse, where CPS acts like nothing's happening. Know of one locally, where the case worker  has been making the mother (who really wasn't abusing her kids) keep being made to jump through hoops, only to be told "Well, we can just as easily giv the children to the (know abusive) father". And it goes on and on...

 The  DHS is only the latest bunch of goons. TSA has no oversite: what do you think the result of that is?

 Yeah... we're pretty much doomed here...

Tallpine

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Re: Baby locked up at Honolulu airport dies
« Reply #9 on: February 20, 2008, 01:01:17 PM »
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I hope things can be changed, but you're speaking to my fear that they really and truly won't

I'm sure things will change, but not for the better ... Sad
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seeker_two

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Re: Baby locked up at Honolulu airport dies
« Reply #10 on: February 20, 2008, 01:54:11 PM »
Ladysmith, I'm really begining to question if things CAN be changed anymore...
Oh man, Strings, are we that far gone?
I hope things can be changed, but you're speaking to my fear that they really and truly won't.  sad

Think "at the edge of Niagra Falls in a cardboard Speedo" type of that far gone.....

The Republic is dying slowly....and gaining speed....
Impressed yet befogged, they grasped at his vivid leading phrases, seeing only their surface meaning, and missing the deeper current of his thought.

MechAg94

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Re: Baby locked up at Honolulu airport dies
« Reply #11 on: February 21, 2008, 12:33:15 PM »
But it has a lot more momentum that people think and will take a while to die.
“It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”  ― Calvin Coolidge

gunsmith

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Re: Baby locked up at Honolulu airport dies
« Reply #12 on: February 21, 2008, 12:50:25 PM »
Terrible, I can't say I'm surprised though.
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