By Vanessa Bauza and Ray Quintanilla
Chicago Tribune
Copyright 2007 Chicago Tribune Company
CARPENTERSVILLE, Ill — A former Carpentersville woman filed a $30 million federal lawsuit Thursday, alleging that anti-immigrant sentiment in the village contributed to paramedics’ failure to take her son to the hospital, causing him permanent brain damage.
Ted Karavidas, a lawyer for Gloria Lopez, said “virulent anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic rhetoric” in the northwestern suburb led to an atmosphere where paramedics denied care for the boy, violating his civil rights.
“They failed to take the baby [to the hospital] in an environment where there was an effort to limit services to undocumented immigrants of Hispanic descent,” he said.
Immigration has been a hot issue in Carpentersville for more than a year. It has divided the Village Board, with one side pushing for a crackdown on illegal immigrants and the other suggesting that the issue is best handled by the federal government.
Lopez, a Mexican immigrant, said she dropped off her son Osbiel, who was then 4 months old, at the home of a trusted baby-sitter on her way to a factory job on the morning of Sept. 18, 2006.
“From one day to the next his life totally changed,” Lopez, 28, said of her son, who was born in the United States. “He was healthy one day, and the next day he was totally different.”
Karavidas declined to say whether Lopez was in the U.S. legally.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, states the baby-sitter, Esther Carrera, called 911 at 10:21 a.m. when Osbiel had trouble breathing.
Paramedics Diane Graham and Martin Gruber, village employees, arrived at Carrera’s home seven minutes later and saw that Osbiel had vomited and was in distress, according to the suit. Graham and Gruber are named as defendants, as is Carpentersville.
Karavidas said the paramedics told Carrera that the boy was having stomach problems and gave her a form to sign declining care. Carrera, who does not speak English, did not understand what she was signing, he said.
About three hours later, Carrera “checked on the baby ... and found that the baby was blue and called 911 frantically,” Karavidas said.
A different set of Fire Department emergency medical technicians responded and took Osbiel to the hospital, where a breathing tube was inserted into his throat and he was diagnosed with an infection, Karavidas said.
Osbiel spent the following four months in hospitals under the supervision of specialists. The 16-month-old boy now requires continuous care and is fed primarily through a tube in his stomach, Lopez said.
Three months ago, she moved to a larger home in Elgin to accommodate the nurses who arrive in shifts to care for Osbiel 18 hours a day. The nurses are paid for through a state program, Lopez said.
“I thought he would be a normal boy, that he would study, grow,” Lopez said, her eyes welling with tears at a news conference. “He doesn’t do many things he should do. ... My baby can’t sit up, he can’t hold up his head. He doesn’t reach for toys.”
Mayor Bill Sarto said he had not seen Thursday’s lawsuit, but added, “The financial award they are seeking would bankrupt the village.”
Sarto said the incident allegedly occurred around the time trustees began debating what to do with $250,000 in unpaid municipal ambulance bills and whether these calls involved illegal immigrants.
“I remember seeing Hispanic names on that list and Anglo names,” Sarto said. “We wrote off the bills.”
Carpentersville has 37,000 residents, about 40 percent of them Latino. The community drew national attention in 2006, when two trustees began talking about introducing a measure modeled after a Hazelton, Pa., ordinance that called for suspending the licenses of businesses employing illegal immigrants and cracking down on landlords who rent to them.
In the weeks after the measure was tabled in Carpentersville, a U.S. federal court struck down the Hazelton ordinance as unconstitutional.
“I can’t believe our Fire Department would do something like that,” said trustee Judy Sigwalt, who favors a crackdown on illegal immigrants. “They give the best of care in response to every call.”
Sarto said he will ask the Village Board in the next few days to consider hiring outside legal defense.