[News] Colorado Woman Kills Family of 5: Were Seizures to Blame?

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CQ:)

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My friend who lives in America sent me this story as she thought I would be interested in reading it.

Colorado Woman Kills Family of 5: Were Seizures to Blame?
Jurors will begin deciding this morning whether a Colorado woman ignored the medical advice of doctors not to operate a vehicle when she plowed her SUV into a pickup truck, killing a family of five.
Prosecutors say Monica Chavez, driving more than 100 miles per hour with her two kids, apparently had a seizure when she entered an intersection, went airborne and smashed into two cars on a Thornton, Colo., street Feb. 17, 2011. Randy and Crystaldawn Stollsteimer, and their kids, Sebastian, Darrian, and Cyrus, died instantly.

Prosecutors say Chavez should not have been behind the wheel because of another seizure-like episode she had in 2006. After the 2006 episode, doctors told Chavez in the emergency room that she should not drive until cleared by a neurologist, prosecutor Tiffany Score said.
She ignored the order, according to prosecutors, but defense attorneys counter that Chavez saw her own doctor who was not convinced she'd had a seizure.

"No doctor will tell you that she should not have been driving five years after something that they never called a seizure," defense attorney Megan Downing said. "She was told she was fine and that's why she was in the car that day."
Chavez suffered another seizure at a McDonalds in August 2010, according to prosecutors. Chavez's husband, George, said the 2010 incident didn't raise a red flag because he thought she just blacked out from suffering a heat stroke, according to ABC News station KMGH-TV in Denver.

Chavez is facing five counts of negligent homicide and two counts of child abuse for putting her own children in danger. It will all come down to 10 women and two men who will decide whether she is a victim of mixed medical advice and bad judgment or a criminal who deserves prison.

"I think the fact that there is such a long timeframe in between the two seizures may really cut against the prosecution," Annemarie McAvoy of Fordham University School of Law in New York said.
The Chavez case has receiving renewed national attention after Commerce Secretary John Bryson was charged with a felony hit-and-run last weekend after he says he suffered a seizure while driving. Bryson was found blacked out after hitting two cars. No one was injured.

http://gma.yahoo.com/colorado-woman...res-blame-070613253--abc-news-topstories.html
 
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Stupidity is to blame here.
No person, seizures or not, should be driving 100mph with two children in the vehicle.
 
Stupidity is to blame here.
No person, seizures or not, should be driving 100mph with two children in the vehicle.
:agree:
Over here in Australia we use Kilometres so I'm not familiar with Miles. I just converted the miles into Kilometres & that the woman was driving approx 160km.
 
It will all come down to 10 women and two men who will decide whether she is a victim of mixed medical advice and bad judgment or a criminal who deserves prison.
Always with the victim story... I swear, in America it seems like everyone who does something wrong, unless the public doesn't like them, is a "victim" of something.
By the descriptions given of her "seizures" they sound like she passed out from heat exhaustion, which is why they never came back. I think this is just a story formulated by the defense to attempt to keep her out of jail.

Make her look like a poor victim of an undiagnosed scary disorder that nobody understands fully, and they'll let her off.
Show her to be an irresponsible and reckless jerk who didn't care about the safety of her children, however, and she's going to jail.

Oh, and I read it wrong. It says she was going OVER 100 mph when she had the seizure and wrecked the SUV.
 
I posted this story this morning in "The Kitchen" under Driving with Epilepsy, since it happened right here in my home city, just up the road from where my niece lives.

It has happened with other driver's here, too. The verdict will probably be on our 10:00 news tonight.
 
It has happened with other driver's here, too. The verdict will probably be on our 10:00 news tonight.

What? What has happened? Seizures while driving, or wrecks in general? :eek:
I certainly hope you don't mean that there's something where you live that is inducing seizures in otherwise normal people. :ponder:
 
What? What has happened? Seizures while driving, or wrecks in general? :eek:
I certainly hope you don't mean that there's something where you live that is inducing seizures in otherwise normal people. :ponder:

I mean that a similar incident happened several years ago in a different area of Denver. Some people just don't want to admit they have a seizure disorder.
 
I posted this story this morning in "The Kitchen" under Driving with Epilepsy, since it happened right here in my home city, just up the road from where my niece lives.

Whoops sorry Cint.
I completely missed that post in the Driving With Epilepsy thread. I don't have much time to look through all the posts in the morning as I only had a glance at what is happening when I posted this thread this morning.
 
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That's fine. Here's the latest on the story from today's Denver Post:

Monica Chavez trial goes to jury despite judge's doubts
By Yesenia Robles

A judge admonished prosecutors Thursday for presenting a thin case against Monica Chavez, a woman accused of killing five people when her SUV went airborne last year after she experienced a seizure.

Judge Chris Melonakis considered granting an acquittal of Chavez in a case in which she faces five counts of criminally negligent homicide and two counts of child abuse.

The prosecution's case has been built on the allegation that Chavez had been warned by a doctor not to drive until she saw a neurologist about a 2006 seizure-like episode — and that she never followed up with a specialist.

Prosecutor Ben Hartford argued against dismissing the charges, but Melonakis repeatedly interrupted him, unconvinced that the case had been completely articulated to jurors.

"She has no duty to take care of herself," Melonakis said at one point. "If someone wants to disregard their health, the issue is to the general public, not herself."

But after a few minutes of consideration, Melonakis let the case go forward, though he cautioned that an appeals court may disagree with his decision.

"It's thin, but it's enough to give it to a jury," Melonakis said of the evidence in the case. "The court notes that on a basis of evidence an appellate court may disagree. The evidence I believe is more consistent with simple negligence, not gross negligence."

After Melanokis' ruling, Chavez's attorneys called only one witness — a police officer who testified for just a few minutes.

After Chavez declined to take the stand, her attorneys rested.

The jury is scheduled to return at 8 a.m. today.

Closing arguments illuminated key points of contention in the case — the testimony from four doctors and a nurse about how they normally talk to patients to discharge them. For example, a doctor could not specifically recall his 2006 discussion with Chavez but testified how he would have conveyed information to her.

The instructions he said he would have given her do not appear in her discharge papers.

"Nobody can say lines never get crossed," said defense attorney Chad Oxman. "They are trying to suggest these discharge papers are some sort of contract between her and society. It is boiler-plate language that most people don't even read."

Prosecutors argued that a statement made during a videotaped interview, which was played for the jury, showed Chavez knew she should have gone to a neurologist after she again experienced a similar episode, as doctors had instructed her to do.

"I did think about it, but I didn't go to the doctor," Chavez said in the recorded interview that was played in the courtroom. "I kept picturing in my mind what I looked like when it happened. I was scared, I guess.

"I just didn't go to a neurologist. I didn't make an appointment."

The crash occurred during rush hour on Feb. 17, 2011, near the intersection of Grant Street and East 84th Avenue in Thornton. Chavez was driving a Ford Expedition that hit a Mazda sedan, then a median that sent her vehicle into the air. The SUV then landed on top of a pickup before coming to rest inside a mattress store.

The Stollsteimer family in the pickup — three children and their parents — died instantly.

Chavez and her two children suffered minor injuries.

The incident that Chavez referred to in her interview with investigator Joseph Dougherty happened months before, in the parking lot of a McDonald's restaurant as Chavez and her daughter were picking out a movie at a Redbox.

"I don't remember," Chavez said of the instance, before recounting the incident as it had been told to her. "Serriah says I fell. George ran over there and I was shaking but stiff and I was biting my tongue. My tongue was really messed up for probably about two weeks after that. He (George) didn't know if I had passed out or had a seizure."

Defense attorney Megan Downing tried to argue Thursday that at the time she was interviewed by Dougherty, she was "desperate" to convince him that she had experienced a seizure and repeatedly in the video expressed concern about what people thought she had done.

Chavez also discussed with Dougherty the possibility of finding video of the McDonald's incident from the restaurant that would help her show people how she acted during those episodes.

During the interview, Chavez also said she did not recall any other seizures and did not mention the instance in 2006 that she had brought up with neurologist Patrick Bosque, who treated her after the fatal accident.

In the 2006 incident, Chavez was taken to an emergency room, but doctors could not confirm whether the episode she had experienced was a seizure.

Brian Williams, an emergency-room doctor, made handwritten notes in his records that he would ask Chavez not to drive until following up with a neurologist within five days, and had made note of two doctors she could see. Those specific instructions did not appear on the discharge papers she was given that day.

During the viewing of the hour-long interview, some people in the courtroom could be hearing sniffling.

"I feel so thankful that my kids are OK, but at the same time I think, am I selfish? Another family lost their life," Chavez said in the interview with investigators. "I wasn't drinking, I wasn't on drugs. I wasn't trying to hurt anyone."
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_20861600/trial-monica-chavez-goes-jury-despite-judges-doubts
 
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okay, I can see both sides of the story here.

If a doctor wasnt sure that it was a seizure, then she really cant have restrictions put on her. I know several people, including on this site that were diagnosed with pseudo-seizures and were never told to not drive. So if that was the case, then I dont see why she should not drive for 5 years. Plus, in most places, you get your license back after 1 year seizure free, or 5 years med free and seizure free. it looks like even if she was under a neuros care, she would have made that milestone and been given her license back anyway.

as for the 100mph. It could have been the tonic phase of the seizure setting in that caused her to press down on the accelerator. So the speeding may also not have been her fault.

on the other hand, she could have very well been having seizures the whole time and just never sought medical attention, and her family is covering it up.
 
Well, here's the verdict, from today's Denver Post:


Driver Monica Chavez not guilty in deaths of Stollsteimer family

BRIGHTON —A jury on Friday found that Monica Chavez's neglect of her health — which ultimately led to a crash last year that killed a family of five — did not reach the point of criminal negligence.

The 12-member panel reached not-guilty verdicts on five counts of criminally negligent homicide and two counts of child abuse against Chavez. The verdicts came after less than five hours of deliberation that followed three full days of testimony.

Chavez, 35, and a handful of family members who had sat in court during the trial — including her husband — cried and embraced one another after the verdicts were read.

The judge had deputies escort them out of the building through back doors, and defense attorneys refused to comment.
Chavez was at the wheel of a Ford Expedition that went out of control Feb. 17, 2011, hit another vehicle and launched off a median before landing on a small pickup. She apparently suffered a seizure just before the crash, which took the lives of Randy Stollsteimer, 34; his wife, Crystaldawn, 31; and their three sons, Sebastian, 12, Darrian, 9, and Cyrus, 7.

Relatives of the Stollsteimer family packed the courtroom during the trial, silently observing.

On Friday, they let out sighs of disbelief when the verdict was read. Many started crying, but none caused any disruptions. Judge Chris Melanokis had repeatedly warned those in the courtroom that he would not tolerate any outbursts.

Eight deputies were standing by, ready to escort anyone out following an emotional trial that hinged on the question of whether Chavez had a duty to see a neurologist followingseizure-like episodes in 2006 and 2010.

Read the full story: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_2...-chavez-not-guilty-deaths-stollsteimer-family
 
Thanks for the update Cint.
Has the driver had her sentence given to her yet?
 
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