A woman in Texas has been arrested after it was discovered that her eight-year-old son had undergone 13 surgeries and hundreds of hospital visits – all of which were unnecessary, authorities state.
The latest and final straw was last month, when Kaylene Bowen-Wright, 34 years old, brought her son Christopher to a hospital in Dallas, claiming that he had a seizure, USA Today reports.
The medical staff said that while they saw a “general and full shake,” there was no evidence of a seizure, according to officials. This led the staff to suspect that the boy’s symptoms may have been caused intentionally, and called Child Protective Services. This was the second report since 2015.
Investigators believe that this medical abuse started in 2009, when Christopher was only 11 days old. The child was a doctor 323 times in Dallas and Houston from 2009 to 2016, medical records show. The boy has been placed full time on oxygen, has used a wheelchair, has had a feeding tube placed directly into his small intestine, and has developed three life-threatening infections as a result.
Bowen-Wright had him placed in hospice care at one time, and even tried to get him on the lung transplant list, the Star-Telegram of Fort Worth reports.
The Dallas County Sheriff’s Office said that Bowen-Wright was arrested and charged with injury to a child with serious bodily harm last week. A YouCaring fundraiser conducted two years ago raised more than $8,000 on the premise that Christopher was battling arteriovenous malformation.
The fund-raising campaign said, “Diagnosed at the age of two, the congenital condition is slowly taking the wind out of the sails of this bright and active boy.”
However, doctors have said that Christopher does not have cancer or any of the many symptoms his mother purports. In fact, a majority of his medical procedures are unnecessary.
Ryan Crawford, the child’s father, said that he had tried to persuade Dallas County Family Court judges that Christopher was not sick, saying, “How do you do 13 surgeries? How do you do it? How do you do 13 surgeries and not question the fifth surgery? The sixth surgery?”
Since being separated from his mother, Christopher eats regularly, has experienced no seizures, does not need feeding tubes, oxygen or an IV, authorities said.
