WOODLAND — Cameron Morrison arrived at Sutter Davis Hospital with lungs full of pneumonia and staph bacteria, an “obviously lethal condition” that apparently went undetected until after his death, a medical expert testified Wednesday at the trial of the boy’s accused killer.
“This is a very dangerous condition, because you’re at risk for respiratory failure — a lack of oxygen that leads to death,” said Dr. Janice Ophoven, a Minneapolis-based pediatric forensic pathologist and the second of two medical experts to testify on suspect Darnell Dorsey’s behalf.
Cameron Morrison was 20 months old when he died in January 2014. Courtesy photo
She said that’s precisely what happened to Cameron, who in her opinion died of cardiac arrest associated with diffused bacterial pneumonia, and not of abuse-inflicted traumatic brain injuries as Yolo County prosecutors allege.
Dorsey, 24, is charged with fatally beating Cameron, his girlfriend’s 20-month-old son, on Jan. 22, 2014, while caring for him and his half-brother at their Olive Drive mobile home in Davis.
Ophoven said doctors at Sutter and at the UC Davis Medical Center overlooked clues regarding the extent of Cameron’s illness, concluding his injuries were the result of nonaccidental trauma without seeking other scientific explanations for his condition.
“That’s why I’m here,” Ophoven said.
Dorsey’s defense attorneys retained Ophoven to perform a differential diagnosis — what the doctor described as a “rational, reasonable” list of conditions that could trigger a medical problem.
She noted that, by multiple family members’ accounts, Cameron had suffered from a cold for several days before he died. He had a cough and runny nose, but also developed a high fever and vomited several times on the day he was hospitalized.
His mother, Veronica Rix, returned home that night to learn from Dorsey that Cameron was unconscious and not breathing. She flagged down an ambulance at Richards Boulevard and Olive Drive, where the boy received initial care before being transferred to Sutter Davis Hospital.
The severe extent of his pneumonia became apparent, Ophoven said, when Sutter medical personnel inserted a breathing tube into his trachea and encountered thick mucous with plugs that later tested positive for “abundant” staphylococcus aureus — a virulent bacteria that causes infections.
“That takes any consideration that this was a hospital-acquired pneumonia off the table,” Ophoven told the jury.
If and when that information reached doctors at the Med Center, where Cameron was transferred several hours after his arrival at Sutter, is unclear, Ophoven said. She noted the information was contained in a medical report finalized on Jan. 26 — the day after Cameron died.
A subsequent autopsy confirmed the finding, with samples of the boy’s lung tissue showing areas that should have been filled with air “full of material that literally prevents movement of air in and out,” Ophoven said. “It’s full of pus.”
She also testified that the infection was clearly visible in X-rays taken at both hospitals, but radiologists there “interpreted it as blood. They were wrong.”
Deprived of oxygen from the time Dorsey reportedly found him unconscious until he arrived at Sutter — a 20-minute span, the defense claims — Cameron “suffered irreversible brain damage at that point,” Ophoven said, citing the boy’s below-normal heart rate and lack of a gag reflex.
Ophoven largely backed the findings of another defense expert, Dr. Roland Auer, a neuropathologist who testified earlier this week that Cameron’s severe pneumonia caused respiratory distress and ultimately cardiac arrest, setting off a cascade of medical problems — including brain swelling and widespread hemorrhaging — that doctors assumed were evidence of abuse.
She did not echo Auer’s opinion that Cameron suffered from rickets, or weak bones, but did diagnose him with a metabolic bone disease that would explain his numerous fresh rib fractures, which Dorsey’s attorneys say broke during vigorous CPR efforts administered by Rix and emergency responders.
Ophoven also blamed CPR for Cameron’s lacerated liver, which Auer attributed to the bone fractures. “CPR is blunt-force trauma,” Ophoven said.
But two Davis firefighters who responded to the call of an unresponsive child outside the Dutch Brothers kiosk on Richards Boulevard and testified Thursday said Cameron’s chest compressions were performed according to protocol.
Firefighter Adam Price, who took over the compressions for an ambulance paramedic, recalled wrapping his hands around Cameron’s torso, his fingers placed along the back of his rib cage, while he used his thumbs to increase the boy’s severely low heart rate.
“I don’t remember feeling any ribs breaking,” Price said. Under cross-examination, he acknowledged he had no way of knowing whether Cameron already had broken ribs when he began his lifesaving efforts.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene