Father Returns Toddler to Mother After Fleeing Hospital

A two-year-old La Mesa boy was returned unharmed to his mother Saturday morning, a day after his father fled a San Diego emergency room with the toddler in a disagreement over the proposed treatment for the child’s potentially fatal drug overdose.

After a night of rambling telephone calls to reporters in San Diego and Los Angeles, 41-year-old Charles Hoch reunited his son, Travis, with ex-wife Nancy Hollar at Hollar’s La Mesa home Saturday morning.

Police, who had launched a manhunt for father and son after Hoch fled the Sharp Memorial Hospital emergency room Friday afternoon, said they would not charge the unemployed student.

“Travis is fine, and that’s all that matters,” a relieved Hollar said Saturday. “He’s home and he’s fine.”

Hoch brought the child to UC San Diego Medical Center for evaluation about 5 a.m. Travis was released to his father in good condition an hour later, according to police. Hoch showed up at Hollar’s door unannounced and turned over the child about 8:30 a.m., she said.

Hoch fled the hospital Friday afternoon about 20 minutes after arriving there with Travis, whom, he told authorities, had accidentally taken an overdose of the prescription antihistamine Atarax. He objected to a nurse’s proposal to treat the toddler by feeding him charcoal, which would have had a laxative effect on the boy.

Hoch refused to allow the treatment, telling nurse Jane Dreissen that she could only continue to monitor his son and demanding to speak to a doctor, a hospital spokeswoman said Friday. Before a doctor arrived, however, Hoch apparently unhooked the child from a heart monitor, dressed him and fled the hospital with Dreissen and another nurse following him.

The pair told Hoch that Travis needed to stay in the hospital, Sharp spokeswoman Cathy Spearnak said.

Hoch said in an interview Saturday evening that he had seen Travis vomit the medicine “about 45 seconds” after swallowing it, and he did not need the charcoal treatment. Hoch said that he kept Travis overnight in part because he was afraid that he would be jailed and the child’s stomach would be pumped.

In four separate telephone calls to a Times reporter in Los Angeles between 12:30 a.m and 4 a.m. Saturday, Hoch said that he initially intended to take Travis to another hospital, but later panicked when he heard on the radio that he was the subject of a manhunt.

He also said that he was deeply afraid that police would beat him if he attempted to turn the child over by himself.

“I’d seen the Rodney King film and I was absolutely scared that the cops had my license number, and if they stopped me, they would grab Travis and beat me up or something,” Hoch said in one of the telephone calls.

He said that he had called newspapers and television stations in San Diego and Los Angeles, apparently in an attempt to arrange a transfer witnessed by members of the media.

Hoch acknowledged that his son had swallowed five to 10 capsules of the antihistamine, which he said had been prescribed as a medication for his skin. A worker at the San Diego Poison Control Center confirmed that antihistamines are sometimes prescribed for skin rashes or allergies.

“I’m a single parent and I guess I’m not as conscious as I should have been about leaving such things around,” Hoch said. “It was my fault. I should not have left them out there.”

Hollar, meanwhile, spent Friday night and early Saturday fearful for her son’s life. She said that she received a message on her telephone answering machine from Hoch about 11:15 p.m. assuring her that Travis was fine.

“I didn’t know what happened. I didn’t know how Travis was or what kind of state he was in,” she said. “All I knew was what the hospital had told me, which was that the medication that he had swallowed could cause his heart to stop at any time.”

Hoch refused to reveal his location during overnight phone calls but revealed after Travis’ return that he was in Santee. He said he had called a doctor several times during the night and received assurances that if Travis was showing no effects from the drugs after several hours, he was out of danger. On Friday, Hoch told authorities at Sharp Hospital that his son had vomited twice before he had arrived there.

Travis ate a hamburger shortly after his father fled the hospital and some pizza later in the evening, Hoch said. Hollar, 32, speculated that her decision to remarry next month may be part of the reason for Hoch’s actions and for recent conflict that includes his attempt to wrest custody of Travis from her. The couple, now legally divorced, have been separated since before Travis was born.