Fact Check

Facebook Appeal for Lylah Rose

A 2-month-old girl was badly burned in the hand by emergency room staff at a Merced hospital?

Published April 4, 2012

Claim:

Claim:   A 2-month-old girl was badly burned in the hand by emergency room staff at a Merced hospital.


UNDETERMINED


Examples:


[Collected on the Internet, April 2012]

This is a friend of mines 2 month old niece Lylah Rose! We took her to the merced er cause she was having diarreah they told me she was dehydrated and need an IV. They were trying to find a vein and put a light on her palm to see through her hand. Where they tried 14 times to get an iv in and blew 3 veins!!!! They held her hand on the light for over 8 min where my neice was SCREAAAMING the whole time!!!! When my sister finally demanded them to stop and send them to valley childrens! When they finally lifted up her hand the Dr or nurse seen the burn and wrapped her hand up with gause!! Failing to even let my sister know they had burned her!! We realized when we got to Valley childrens she had a HUGE bubble on the palm of her hand that had popped from the tape being placed on it!! My sis took her to the Dr. today to get it checked out & the Dr. said these are second degree burns and is sending my sis to a burn specialist where they are going to have to remove the dead and dying skin from her hand!!! :( I have contacted the local newspaper, the local news station who are ALL denying to write a story about what happened! I can’t let this slide! Please help share our story! We can be her voice!! I don’t want them to be able to do this to anyone else!! WILL YOU HELP US KMPH FOX 26 and get justice for lylah and expose the truth? THIS IS NEWS THAT MATTERS. Merced Hospital is trying to cover this up. If this isn’t newsworthy I don’t know what is!

Lylah Rose


 

Origins:   This item, which began circulating in April 2012, maintains that a 2-month-old girl

named Lylah Rose was taken to a hospital in Merced, California, for treatment of diarrhea; and when she was diagnosed as being dehydrated, emergency room
staff engaged in multiple attempts to insert an IV which resulted in second-degree burns to her hand. Furthermore, the item asserts that attempts to interest local media in the story have failed, as those news outlets are "denying to write a story about what happened!"

In response to a query, Fresno television station KMPH said they had attempted to look into the story but were so far unable to obtain information from either party involved in the alleged incident:



In order for us to do this story, we must be able to speak with the family and the hospital. We have contacted both. The family referred us to an attorney who will not discuss the case and the hospital will not comment due to patient protection laws.

On a Facebook site established as the "voice" for Lylah Rose, a post made on 3 April 2012 stated that:



We talked to our lawyer today who told us not to talk to the media just yet. Until he is finished gathering all the information he needs. But I assure you AS SOON as he says, we will talk to the media and share Lylah's story so this never happens again. Until then we are just going to focus on getting lylah better and out of pain.

Last updated:   3 April 2012

David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.