Postscript : ‘If you harbor unforgiveness, it tears you up.’ : Happiness Returns to Home Torn by Drugging of Infant
Life has largely returned to normal at the Mathews household in Van Nuys. Perhaps the only reminder of a horrifying episode is the scar on the neck of 2-year-old Sarah Mathews. Brian Mathews said that, if it weren’t for the scar, you’d never know anything bad had happened to his daughter.
On Sept. 10, 1984, the 11-month-old infant was rushed to the hospital suffering seizures and fever. Doctors discovered that she had been injected with a near-fatal dose of the heart drug lidocaine. Several days later the police arrested Randy Powers, the 25-year-old son of a day-care center owner who baby-sat Sarah and her sister Melissa, then 2.
Although he maintained his innocence, Powers was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, child endangering and unlawfully practicing medicine. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
What followed for Sarah and her family were the most trying of times.
The baby’s breathing passages had collapsed, so for several months she breathed through a white plastic tube through her throat. Twice a day her parents had to pin her down and mechanically suction mucous from the tube, a process that made the baby cry, scream and vomit. Sarah also required daily anti-convulsive medication.
Brian and Maria Mathews, both in their late 20s, became afraid to leave their daughter. Brian took a night job in order to be at home while Maria worked during the day. They rarely took Sarah outside.
And there were changes in Sarah’s personality.
“She used to be a super-happy baby,” Maria said at the time. “She used to be real friendly. Now she cries if somebody she doesn’t know comes around.”
A year later the scar remains on Sarah’s neck. Time has apparently healed the other wounds.
Sarah is once again a happy, trusting baby, her parents said. She is perhaps a little shyer than her older sister, but Brian Mathews doubts that that stems from the ordeal.
Browne Greene, a lawyer representing the Mathewses in a civil suit against Hazel and Randy Powers, cautioned that the long-range medical and psychological effects on the baby have not yet been determined.
The parents have healed. With Powers in prison, they have let go of their anger.
“I learned that if you harbor unforgiveness, it tears you up,” Brian Mathews said. “Pondering isn’t going to change anything.”
The couple has also learned to trust a small circle of 10 or so relatives and friends with whom they leave Sarah. They both work day jobs now.
A civil suit is pending against Randy Powers. But the Mathewses do not concern themselves with that. At the moment they are happy to be living a normal life.
“You couldn’t have a happier ending to this story,” Brian Mathews said.