On February 3, 2014, I was called to meet a 
colleague down at his office at 1pm. I tried to ask what the meeting was about but he wouldn't say,
but stated I should come there to meet with him because it was very important. This person's office was an adoption agency and my colleague had in front of me papers to sign my parental rights away because a person who I had dated the previous spring/summer was in labor and she had named me the father of the child. A month later, I was granted custody of my son and tried to begin my life as a single father. From birth, I noticed my son didn't seem medically sound; he would gaze away and clinch his arm and leg on his right side. The mother turned 21 during her pregnancy and did admit to drinking and smoking marijuana. She also did not see a doctor and claims she did not realize she was pregnant until her 7th month. On April 16, 2014, I was home alone with my son when he had an episode where he was thrashing around in my arms, and went unconscious. I called 911. When they arrived, my son was acting like a normal 2 month old with low vitals. The EMT's took him to the ER and I followed closely. In the ER, my son's vitals and actions were of a normal baby. Minutes before we were to be discharged, he had another episode and the doctors and nurses went to work. They did a CT scan and found a small subdural hematoma. They intubated him, which took several tries, and transported him to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Washington. On April 22, 2014, after being heavily interrogated by the police and CPS, I was arrested and charged with Assault of a Child in the 1st Degree. Twelve days later, I was bailed out by my family on a $100,000 bond and have been awaiting trial for almost 2 years.
The holidays are so very hard because I have yet to spend one Thanksgiving, Christmas, 4th of July, Father's Day or Birthday with my son. The current holidays hurt the most because my son is with the mother and family who wanted to give him up for adoption. They did not have any other plans for him and were very upset when I pursued custody. I have been an Uncle to two wonderful nieces, the oldest being 4 years old. I do my best to stay happy and cheerful for them and not show them my pain of not having my son with us. This whole ordeal has taken a huge emotional toll on my family. Not one of us has seen him since the day I was arrested and we all deal with our pain in different ways. Being 30 years old, many of my friends have little ones of their own and I live in fear for them, even though I know that all of them took their pregnancy seriously and had very health children. It's sometimes hard to see the videos and pictures of their happy families together with Santa or around the tree. Recently, my trial was pushed back from January 2016 to April 2016. We have gathered as many medical records as we can for the expert and are awaiting their reports.
This testimony was provided to the Pediatric Justice
Association by Andrew Sprint, the father.
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