Mother of girl who had multiple amputations testifies in $31.7M lawsuit against doctors
Kamryn Bond's life changed forever when she was just 11 months old.
The Grande Prairie resident is now 12 years old, going into grade seven.
"Kamryn just wants to be normal," lawyer Stacy Koumarelas told an Edmonton Court of Queen's Bench judge on Tuesday morning. "But the past 11 years have been anything but normal for Kamryn Bond."
The girl had her legs, right hand and three fingers on her left hand amputated after a 2011 stay at the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Grande Prairie. On behalf of her daughter, Dale Bond is suing the doctors who treated her daughter for $31.7-million, alleging medical negligence.
In statements of defence filed with the courts, the defendants have denied all allegations. A family doctor previously testified for the defence that the treatment provided was consistent with the expected standard of care.
Hospital stay
According to a statement of claim filed in 2015, Dale Bond brought her baby to the hospital in 2011 because she was suffering from shortness of breath, a dry cough and fever.
Doctors at the Grande Prairie hospital thought she had a viral infection, but her condition continued to deteriorate. They did not administer any antibiotics.
The plaintiff alleges Kamryn's bacterial lung infection was left untreated and developed into sepsis followed by septic shock.
The baby was airlifted to the Stollery Children's hospital in Edmonton on Feb. 22, 2011.
"I was told that they did not know if she would live or die," Dale Bond testified on Monday. Kamryn was placed on a form of life support and then her kidneys failed.
Kamryn's family got more devastating news about a month later when Stollery doctors advised they would have to amputate her necrotic limbs.
Both of Kamryn's legs were amputated below the knees, along with her right hand and three fingers on her left hand.
Post-amputation
"Kamryn puts on a brave face," Koumarelas said in her opening statement on Monday. "She wears prostheses all day at school because she wants to be like all the other kids."
The girl's mother said she's noticed a difference as her daughter approaches puberty.
"Kamryn has really been trying to fit in the past couple of years," Dale Bond testified. "I think she's just trying to be a normal, 12-year-old little girl."
The 44-year-old mother of three fought back emotion as she admitted that her daughter had been subjected to some bullying and teasing.
Bond said her daughter refuses to use a wheelchair at school, so that means she's wearing prostheses for 12 to 14 hours a day.
At the end of the school day, the exhausted pre-teen returns to her family's two-story home on an acreage outside Grande Prairie. If she's removed her prosthetics, she has to crawl up the stairs to her second-floor bedroom.
Dale Bond said the house they purchased in 2012 is not wheelchair accessible, and sometimes Kamryn has accidents. Just last week, Dale testified her daughter fell down the stairs after her prosthetic leg buckled.
"Her leg kind of got twisted up backwards," Dale said, explaining on the witness stand that her daughter broke her leg and is now temporarily confined to a wheelchair.
The lawyer who is representing Kamryn told Justice Avril Inglis that the 12-year-old is described as independent and resilient, but acknowledged that in the future she'll face a likely loss of income and continued health challenges.
"She's entitled to everything, so she can experience life's joys rather than being hailed as resilient," Koumarelas said.
Kamryn is expected to testify on Wednesday, after her mother completes her testimony.
