HALL COUNTY, Ga. — A Hall County mother is charged with child cruelty for not taking her 14-year-old son, who weighed 49 pounds, to the hospital.
Oakwood police said they received a call on July 25 from a pediatric gastroenterologist who requested they do a welfare check on the child.
The doctor said lab results showed the teen was in critical condition and needed to get to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
According to an incident report, the doctor said the mother was “screening” multiple calls from the doctor’s office and the hospital and would not answer.
Officers arrived at 3415 Peaks Circle and found the woman and her son in a bedroom.
Hashabah Yehudah, 44, was charged with second-degree cruelty to children. She remained in the Hall County jail on Wednesday with no bond.
“When I met Hashabah and (the child), he was skinny and lying on a towel on the bed,” the arrest warrant said. “Hashabah stated that doctors wanted to give him an infusion, but she wants to give him medicine for his iron. The doctor said that (it’s) an emergency and the child’s life is in danger.”
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Police said Yehudah wanted her son to go to Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville, not Children’s. Paramedics told her Children’s was best equipped to treat her son’s condition.
The incident report said that when Yehudah asked where paramedics were taking her son, they told her Children’s.
“If I knew I had to take him, I would have,” she reportedly said.
The child remains at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, and police describe his condition as stable.
The teen is in the custody of the Division of Family and Children Services, which has launched an investigation.
D.M. Willis, who lives in a neighboring building, said the apartment complex abounds with children, and that everybody feels a responsibility to look after the kids.
He said he was stunned to learn that he knew nothing of the 14-year-old and his condition.
“I tell you, this community here is a community full of people that love and look out for each other’s kids,” he said. “And unfortunately, it looked like one slipped through our hands and we weren’t able to see that or we weren’t aware of that.”
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