The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez

Nine, one, one, emergency?

Yes, um, I would like to, um, my son is not breathing.

Your son is what?

He's not breathing.

Hold on, one second. I'm gonna transfer you over to the...

fire department. Don't hang up.

Oh, my God. Um, my son is eight years old.

It's your son. Okay. And he's not breathing?

No.

Is he having a seizure?

No. He was, uh, wrestling with my other son.

And I came in and he just was unconscious.

Okay, I do have the paramedics on the way, right now.

- Are you right there with him? - Yes. I'm right here.

Okay. Do you know how to do CPR?

Um, I'm doing the compressions on his chest, right now.

Okay. You need to breathe for him if he's not breathing.

You need to do two breaths and 30 compressions.

I just need you to keep doing that until the paramedics come. Okay?

They're on their way, they're coming as fast they can.

I was the ambulance bay nurse.

The paramedics had called saying that

they were bringing in this eight-year-old,

that was in cardiac arrest and there was questionable trauma.

Definitely a situation didn't make sense,

but they're coming in code three, like they're coming fast right now,

like emergency.

This was the highest level of emergency.

Yeah.

It was a fishy situation.

We definitely knew we didn't have the whole story.

We just knew that it was bad and it was coming in.

We had a trauma surgeon, the ER doctor,

the respiratory therapist so we could intubate if needed.

We want an OR ready.

We want blood bank.

Lab's there. I mean everybody hands on.

We're ready. We have everything ready to go.

The EMS personnel had gotten his pulses back.

We did get that update, en-route.

So they had pulses when he first got there.

As they're wheeling him in they're yelling out

what's been going on, what they're doing,

the situation at hand.

As soon as we moved him on our gurney,

we felt for a pulse.

There was no pulse again.

So...

we immediately started resuscitating him.

And then we just give cardiac medications to help his heart start again.

We found out that he was very cold so you try warming measures.

We found out his hemoglobin was super low.

He needed blood.

We got him to CAT scan.

He coded again in CAT scan, and he lost his pulse again.

So we resuscitated him again,

and got pulses back,

finished the scans,

got him back to the room.

At this point, I kind of stand back because since I'm the ambulance bay nurse,

I'm going to chart everything that's happening.

It's a crazy mad house.

Everybody's around him, everybody's working on him, all hands on deck.

So I'm trying to chart, and as I'm like...

looking up and they're calling things out,

I'm just, like, in awe, I can't even believe what they're telling me is...

what they're seeing.

He had a depressed skull fracture,

meaning you could feel... his skull.

You know, you feel your head and it's nice and round,

his was like, dented, you could feel the like... it's called crepitus,

where it's almost like Rice Krispies. You could feel it...

crunchy on his head.

I remember his throat just looked like somebody burned him.

Bruising and cuts all over his face.

Black eyes.

Cuts everywhere. He had like a weird cut above his penis.

Abrasions like on the top of his foot, like he'd been dragged.

Ligature marks on his ankles, like he'd been tied up.

I mean every, every part on his body there was just something.

Oh, he's got a bullet in his lung.

Oh, he's got a bullet in his groin. It's like...

Cigarette marks that he'd like...

people had been putting cigarettes out on him and...

different stages. I mean, he'd have a bruise

that looks like it's almost healed, bruises that look brand-new like...

burns, cuts, abrasions.

Everything you could think of, all over this kid.

All over him.

He didn't look like a child.

I just remember that night thinking,

I... I...

I just can't...

I just remember saying that I just can't, like I don't...

I can't wrap my head around this.

I can't wrap my head around how... how it got to this.

I'll always remember his name.

Gabriel.

You're sad. You're angry. You're sitting there thinking;

oh, my God.

Not only do you not think he's going to make it,

but how did these people do this to him?

I mean, there's no way you couldn't have seen it.

There's so much trauma, so much damage.

And there's so many questions.

If CPS isn't doing anything about it,

and the sheriffs aren't doing anything about it.

How did this happen?

She said he slipped in the bathtub.

That was the 911 call, that he slipped in the bathtub.

Children's Hospital gets there.

They have a whole critical care team that can take care of him.

So we transfer all the care over.

Then they wheel him out to Children's Hospital in LA.

And at that point, does he have a pulse?

Yes.

You're standing in a trauma room that looks like...

everything was just blown out, 'cause there's just stuff everywhere.

And that's the first time that you have a second to breathe and think...

holy crap.

What just happened?

And at that moment, that's when it was just...

hit me.

But, no, in the moment, you don't have time for that.

You can't think. You can't stop. You can't get emotional...

'cause that... he needs you.

I remember the first time I ever did CPR on a kid,

I'll always remember it and it was horrible,

but it didn't affect me like this.

Nothing has affected me like this.

I thought this kid has never known love.

This kid has never known what it feels like to be hugged.

You know what I mean?

And that just breaks your heart.

This was the case for me, you know in 14 years in the ER,

this was the case that...

just has followed me from...

from that night.

I mean, I celebrate his birthday with my family. We let balloons off.

At the point that Gabriel's case happened,

I had been working at the LA Times for seven or eight years.

Was covering Los Angeles County government at the time.

It's the largest local government in the country.

My boss actually told me that I was the first person

that ever asked to be on the beat.

Um...

And the reason why I wanted to be there, was because it was where, um...

very clearly,

the elected officials were making life-and-death decisions.

One day I was looking at the homicide blog,

which the LA Times maintains,

that chronicles absolutely every single homicide in the... in the county.

Gabriel's name was on there, his age, and...

the manner of death.

Started calling people up throughout the county infrastructure

saying, you know, "have you heard about this boy?"

Gabriel Fernandez was, at the time of his death, eight years old,

still in first grade.

He had been raised by his uncle

and his uncle's partner, initially in life.

Around age three or so,

he went to his grandparents,

and about six months before he died,

he went to his mother and her boyfriend.

The first time I heard about Gabriel Fernandez,

it was just like any other story.

We get murders, we get deaths, all the time in LA.

Police said they found their murder suspect,

in this motel in south LA...

On the ground, you see some blood on the sidewalk.

Screaming was heard at that house,

cops were called out.

I mean it's unfortunately, not that uncommon.

And so when we heard it, well, yeah, it was a bad case.

I don't believe it even makes the paper.

There's a lot of stories that we'll put up on the web,

that... there's not enough room in the papers for them.

And this is one of them.

You know, it was the case of a kid who was killed,

um, looked bad,

and so be it.

But the next step came

when the Board of Supervisors picked up this case,

and...

that now bounces it up a notch.

Yes.

Yeah, I'm, I'm here to talk about...

young Gabriel Fernandez.

There's something about this kid's death that's a little bit unusual.

The supervisors have now taken notice.

The child was pronounced dead, May 24th, 2013,

under DFS jurisdiction.

How does that make you guys feel?

We thank you for your testimony.

Board of Supervisors,

everybody knows who they are, but barely knows what they do.

They are the most powerful group in the city.

Once elected,

they almost never get voted out.

They control just an enormous budget that surpasses a lot of states.