[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
A Texas tween is dead after her parents allegedly failed to seek medical attention for her severe injuries… and instead opted to treat the pre-teen with homemade vitamin smoothies.
According to the Atascosa County Sheriff’s Office, 12-year-old Miranda Sipps died on Monday night at Methodist Hospital in the small town of Atascosa, which is southwest of San Antonio. She was a cheerleader at local Jourdanton Junior High School, and had been set to turn 13 later this month. Now she never will. So awful…
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Cops looking into her death quickly discovered her parents withheld key medical care from the little girl. On Tuesday, the girl’s mother Denise Balbaneda (pictured above, right in her mugshot) and her stepfather Gerald Gonzales (above, left) were arrested in the small town of Christine. Per the sheriff’s office, they were charged with injury to a child causing serious bodily injury by omission — which is a first-degree felony — and booked into Atascosa County Jail.
Speaking at a news conference about the case on Wednesday, Sheriff David Soward informed the media Miranda was badly injured. And Balbaneda and Gonzales “tried tending to” their daughter at home for days while she was “primarily unconscious.” Soward said the parents “tried a couple of remedies” on the ailing girl before her death — one of which included a smoothie with some vitamins mixed in. They also appear to have tried to give her supplemental oxygen at one point. Soward stated:
“Basically, they thought they could nurse her back to health, and we do not think they wanted the attention that this would draw if the little girl was injured, which is strangely ironic, but that was their line of thinking.”
Unsettling…
Soward termed Sipps’ initial issues to be “serious life-threatening injuries” which she sustained last Thursday, a full FOUR DAYS prior to her death. But interestingly, and chillingly, the sheriff did NOT reveal the extent of those injuries, or how they may have been caused in the first place — only that the girl’s parents didn’t take her to get medical attention for way too long. Was there a darker reason they were trying to cover up the injuries? They’re not being charged with anything else yet, so that part is still a mystery.
Per My San Antonio and others, the sheriff’s statement continued:
“The investigation revealed the parents failed to seek medical assistance for the girl, even though she was mentally and physically incapacitated and non-responsive. It appears the mother finally called 9-1-1 when the girl went into respiratory distress.”
The whole thing came to a head on Monday night with that extremely belated 9-1-1 call. After Balbaneda called paramedics, Soward said that she and Gonzales rushed Sipps to the hospital. EMS personnel in an ambulance intercepted them en route and transported the girl to the emergency room. Sadly, it was too late. Despite medical staff “vigorously” treating the pre-teen on Monday night, her condition was too severe, and she was pronounced at 9:55 p.m. local time.
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As for why the girls’ parents waited so long to bring her to receive medical attention — and regarding why they drove her to the hospital themselves rather than waiting for trained paramedics to stabilize her — Soward speculated the parents didn’t want law enforcement officers in their home. Hmmm.
For now, with both parents still behind bars, the sheriff’s office will continue their investigation. What a horrific case. Ugh. A GoFundMe page has been set up to pay for Miranda’s funeral expenses. You can visit that page for yourself HERE.
R.I.P.
If you have sincere cause to suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org.
[Image via GoFundMe/Atascosa County Sheriff’s Office]
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