Javona Peters Case: Nathaniel Abraham May Need a New Attorney

There's a battle shaping up in New York over the decision to remove the feeding tube from a 16 year old girl in a persistent vegetative state. It's right up David Gibbs' ally, which could mean that Gibbs will wind up taking a lot of time away from Creationist client Nathaniel Abraham's lawsuit against Woods Hole. If Abraham were smart, he'd be looking for alternative representation right now because Gibbs is almost certainly going to inject himself into the situation. If he were smart, that is.

Kin battle over daughter's life support

Sixteen-year-old Javona Peters sat up in bed at Montefiore Medical Center the morning of Oct. 17, smiling and chatting, ready for her operation...

A few hours later, Javona was without most of her brain function - forever blind, deaf, unable to move, talk, think or eat on her own.

Her heart still beats and she can breathe with assistance, but she is in a persistent vegetative state, much like Terri Schiavo or, a generation ago, Karen Ann Quinlan.

And now - like them - she is the subject of an impending court battle, one that will pit father against mother over whether to let their daughter die...

[Note: Javona's father has recently had a change of heart in his objection to removing his daughter from life support.]

It was supposed to be a routine, 90-minute procedure called a ventriculostomy. The surgeon would bore a hole in the brain to drain cerebral fluid into a cavity. This would alleviate the potentially destructive pressure of what's commonly known as water on the brain...

Then the parents learned from hospital personnel that Javona had stopped breathing during the operation.

"Her brain wasn't getting any oxygen. They said it was 'anoxia' and that destroyed her brain," Javona's mother said.

Javona's parents, who are estranged and never married, cannot agree on whether to remove the tube. Both consented to the operation; neither signed a do-not-resuscitate order.

Javona's mother wants her off life support: "I lost my only daughter, she was my life and now she's gone and I want her to go in peace..."

The matter is in Bronx Supreme Court, with Joseph's petition to be named her daughter's guardian. If granted, Joseph would have the power to ask for a judicial order to end her daughter's life support. A hearing on the case, which involves a planned medical malpractice suit, is set for Jan. 7.

"If the father chooses to fight it and the hospital refuses to honor the mother's wishes, it could become a case like Terri Schiavo's," Korek said...

Javona Peters' surgeon, Dr. James Goodrich, declined to comment. He is director of pediatric neurosurgery at Montefiore and a leader of the team that in 2003 performed a daring series of lifesaving surgeries on Carl and Clarence Aguirre, Filipino twins born joined at the head...

Joseph, who raised Javona from birth, said Javona was born prematurely. When she was 3 months old, Goodrich, then at Jacobi Medical Center, placed a shunt, or tube, in her brain to drain excess fluids, Joseph said...

Joseph, who has a detailed handwritten diary of what occurred, said Goodrich told her the relevant anesthestic agents used were vecuronium and pancuronium. Both are potent muscle relaxants, often used in concert. Pancuronium causes full muscle paralysis and is used in lethal injections in executions, according to medical dictionaries.

"I asked, if she wasn't getting enough oxygen, why didn't anyone notice with all those people and machines in the operating room," Joseph said.

Three weeks after the operation, Joseph said, Goodrich told her he thought Javona had had an allergic reaction to the anesthesia.

"He was very upset from the beginning," Joseph said...

Javona's mother is furious. "I am shocked, I am angry, I am hurt and I am devastated," she said.

Right off the bat, I wish Javona Peters' family well and can only hope that if there was the least bit of negligence on the part of those involve with this surgery that they are held fully accountable. I can't imagine what Peters' family is going through right now and I hope that neither I nor anyone else ever have to find out what it's like to have to make a terrible decision like this. Ms. Peters has every right to file a malpractice suit in this situation and have the events leading up to this sorry state of affairs investigated exhaustively. At the same time, I hope that the medical personnel in this were as responsible as their positions demand and that this was, indeed, an unfortunate accident. For that matter, I wish that Javona Peters would leap up from her bed in full health. That, unfortunately, is very unlikely to happen.

At this point, as noted above, Peters' father is even coming to realize that his daughter's condition is unlikely to change for the better:

The father, Leonard Peters, was initially against the idea, but has said he is "85% changed my mind now, but I don't know the legality." He said that if nothing works for Javona he does not see the point now.

— Source

The question here is whether David Gibbs will be able to resist the temptation to take a public stand on this, or even file some kind of motion (sorry, I'm not up on my legalese) to get himself involved as if he were representing Javona Peters directly. Will he call Congress into session at midnight as he did in the Terri Schiavo case and attempt to contravene Peters parents in his effort to bring the laws of man into line with what he imagines as the Laws of God? This is, after all, exactly the sort of case upon which Gibbs has established his fame in religious circles. I just can't see him passing up another "opportunity" like this one. Anybody care to wager how long it will be before we hear his name in connection with this case?

If there's anything that's more of a hot button issue for folks like Gibbs than evolutionary biology, it's the "right to life." Gibbs' co-believers can always advocate for the possibility of a divine intervention (miracle) and contend that prayer can cure anything... even irreversible coma.

Nathaniel Abraham had better start looking for a new attorney. The Peters case goes before the Bronx Supreme Court on January 7. That's not a lot of time.

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Finding Lovecraft: A Pilgrimage to Providence

As we'd hoped, we managed to locate H.P. Lovecraft's grave in Swan Point Cemetery. The easiest way to do this is to go to the cemetery office. Just inside the front door is a kiosk that allows you to select the name of the person you're looking for and then prints a map that gives the general vicinity of their grave. We had coordinates provided by a geocaching enthusiast but they turned out to be very inaccurate, placing Lovecraft's grave well outside the cemetery gate. The cemetery itself is about 200 square acres, so it's a bad gaffe. If you have a GPS unit, though, the correct coordinates are 41° 51.244N, 71°22.864W. That should put you within about 10 feet of the gravesite. The cemetery map you'll receive from the kiosk is a little confusing; it doesn't give street names, just lot numbers (Lovecraft is in lot 276), and these aren't in order. Bring the GPS and save yourself some time.

This image is looking back up the road from Lovecraft's grave; the street running across the foreground is Avenue B.


Street sign showing the number of the lot in which Lovecraft's grave is located. It's practically in a straight line across the road from this sign.


This shot shows the view of the area in which the grave is located as seen from the sign. Using these three images, you should have no problem finding the Lovecraft family plot.


One of the two obelisks from the previous shot in more detail. The plot belongs to Lovecraft's relatives, the Phillips.


Lovecraft's grave is located directly in front of that of Byron Whitford and just to the left of the Potter marker.


When you see this view, you've found H.P. Lovecraft and his parents, Winfield and Sarah. Congratulations, you've arrived. The stones are notably nondescript. There should be some squat alien Cthulhu-esque deity somewhere in the shot by now!
The above sequence of six photos, combined with the coordinates, should be enough for anyone to find the grave site. Just for the record, when I took the GPS reading while standing next to HPL's headstone, the screen on my unit turned half black. It has never done that before. It's coincidence, of course, but did add a tiny air of mystery to what was otherwise a pretty bland spot. Folks really need to chip in and buy some sort of marker for the grave that conveys something more about Lovecraft's work. As it is, even the Swan Point Cemetery website doesn't list Lovecraft as one of the noteworthy individuals interred there, and that's just wrong.


The headstone of HPL's father, Winfield Scott Lovecraft.


Lovecraft's mother, Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecraft. The resemblance between mother and son was quite striking.


At last, here's H.P. Lovecraft's headstone. Considering how much Lovecraft disliked anyone not of English ancestry (other than his Jewish wife, Sonia Greene, whom he probably wound up hating eventually), the irony of myself and LL standing there didn't escape us. We half-expected a skeletal hand to reach up from the grave and shoo us away.


Offerings left at the grave sometime before the last snowstorm. They include a plastic cartoon cat, a sketch advocating Cthulhu for president in 2008, and a large green translucent glass marble. I added my own as well:


LL snapped this photo of my offering with her cell phone. It's an expired Florida license plate with the words "That is not dead which can eternal lie..." written on the top in permanent marker. It seemed appropriate somehow.



A photo of myself with the headstone, the closest I'll ever get to being photographed with Lovecraft. Even were he still alive, he probably wouldn't have associated with the likes of me, anyhow. Still, I started reading his works when I was 8 years old and have almost certainly read nearly everything he ever wrote short of a shopping list. That includes not only his prose but also his dreadful poetry and most of his correspondence.

After the visit to the grave, we headed into Providence to find Lovecraft's home at 454 Angell Street. The address no longer exists.


The view up Angell Street from the corner at which Lovecraft's home once stood.


The corner of Angell and Elm Grove is now occupied by this multi-dwelling building, called 8 Elm Grove, on one side of Elm Grove. The house directly across from this, which looks like it may well have been standing long before HPL came along, is 453 Angell St., so the corner in this photo is the most likely site at which Lovecraft's childhood home once stood. However...


Directly across Elm Grove stands this Starbuck's outlet, and it's possible that HPL's house stood on this corner or straddled what is now Elm Grove and included both properties. I wonder what Lovecraft would have had to say about Starbuck's. It is a bit like one of the Great Old Ones, after all.


Finally, here's a shot of 453 Angell Street, the old house standing across from Lovecraft's former address. This is a bit more like what Lovecraft's house would have looked like. There are a few old houses like this in the vicinity, but there are also a good number of more recent buildings, particularly storefronts and apartment buildings.

I'm not sure why, but Providence doesn't seem to attach much significance to Lovecraft's heritage. I don't think there are any markers to his memory in the city, let alone a street named for him or some such thing. That's too bad considering how popular he is now. It's also a bit ironic considering the epitaph on his headstone.

Nevertheless, it seemed fitting to visit H.P. Lovecraft on a Squidmas Eve in New England. Next time, we'll try conjuring Cthulhu, or perhaps I'll stand on his grave and shout "Hastur" a few times to see what happens.

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Providence Tomorrow; Whatever Happened to the Worcester & Providence?

Our original plan was to spend tomorrow at home and head over to do the family thing in Providence on Tuesday, but we've been talked into going over a day early. The plan now is to get the oil changed in the car in the morning and then drive over. We'd been hoping not to drive The Beast, but there isn't a train we can take directly from Worcester to Providence; we'd have to go to Boston first. The train ride would cost $50 and take 2.5 hours each way, not counting time spent waiting between trains. That's crazy; Providence is only 45 miles away! Taking a bus doesn't leave us in much better shape. We're driving.

Considering that there is a Worcester and Providence Railroad that still exists, I'm a bit amazed that it can be so difficult to catch a passenger train to Providence. It shouldn't take any longer, nor be anymore expensive, to get to Providence than it is to get to Boston. But there you have it; we're driving.

Our first stop will be Lovecraft's grave, then over to the relatives' house. We should be back, and I should be back online, sometime on Wednesday.

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Plans for Da Holidaze Include a Visit with Cthulhu's Dad

LL and I are planning to pass the holidaze with some relatives of hers in Providence. As a result, we're also planning on paying a visit to the grave of HP Lovecraft in Swan Point Cemetery. Due to our ethnicities, Lovecraft probably would have hated our paying him a visit were he alive, so it's a good thing that he remains dead. In such a condition, he's unable to unleash the Wrath of Cthulhu upon us as far as we know.

If, however, you happen to read in the paper about the mysterious deaths of an anthropologist and a biologist in a Rhode Island cemetery, the bodies being covered with squid-like sucker marks, you'll know what happened.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Lovecraft Providence wgah'nagl fhtagn!

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