As parents, it is our job to protect our children. We are supposed to be there to care for them when they're ill, hurt, or in any sort of danger. But we all know that there are parents who do not always get it right or do not have their children's best interests at heart.
A 12-year-old girl from Christine, Texas, has died after her parents failed to adequately treat life-threatening injuries the tween had. Instead of immediately taking their daughter to get professional medical care, they tried to treat her injuries themselves at home. They are now facing serious charges.
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The young girl went into respiratory distress, which caused her parents to finally act.
Jourdanton Junior High School student Miranda Sipps, 12, died in the hospital on August 13, according to a post from the Atascosa County Sheriff's Office on Facebook.
The sheriff's office reported that 911 dispatchers received a call requesting medical assistance. The mother, Denise Balbaneda, did not want the authorities to come to her home, so she began driving toward the hospital. EMS met Balbaneda on the highway, and at the time, the girl was still alive, but unconscious. Emergency room personnel tried to treat her, but she was pronounced dead at 9:55 p.m.
The parents had reportedly tried alternative methods to treat the girl.
Sipps had been injured four days before her death, and her parents tried to treat her injuries with smoothies and vitamins, David Soward, the Atascosa County Sheriff said during a press conference, according to My San Antonio.
"Basically they thought they could nurse her back to health and we do not think they wanted the attention that this would draw if the little girl was injured," Soward said.
There are still a lot of questions.
Soward chose not to share theories about what kind of life-threatening injuries Sipps was suffering from. An autopsy will be performed to get more answers. Though Soward didn't give much detail, he did say that the girl had no broken bones at the time of her death.
"We're going to get to the bottom of it before we address how the injuries occurred," he said.
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It's all suspicious.
There is speculation that Balbaneda and her husband, Gerald Gonzales, had also tried to give the girl oxygen at some point. Soward shared that Sipps could only "flutter her eyes and move her hands a little bit over a four-day period," while the initial release from the sheriff's department stated that the girl was "mentally and physically incapacitated and non-responsive."
It seems that help was only called once she began experiencing respiratory distress. Then Balbaneda left with the girl in the car.
"Our information is they didn't want law enforcement at the house so she left with the child," Soward said.
The case is still under investigation as more details emerge.
Balbaneda and Gonzalez were arrested and charged with injury to a child causing serious bodily injury by omission, which is a first-degree felony. As the investigation is ongoing, charges could be changed or added. According to the sheriff, there have been law enforcement calls to the house in the past, but they didn't disclose the nature of the calls.
Soward and an investigator noted that Balbaneda showed little to no remorse over the loss of her daughter. Gonzalez showed some remorse.
If you suspect child abuse, you can call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453 (1-800-4-A-Child), or go to Childhelp.org. The hotline is available 24/7.
