3 October 2024

Lindsay Partin Case

 "Science" is the Greek word for knowledge.  Without science as your guide, you are lost in the poisonous fog of bullshit.

In Ohio v Partin (2018), three prosecution expert witnesses told three varieties of a bullshit fairy story about what killed a child.  The radiologist said AHT, the pediatrician said shaking, and the pathologist said "brain shearing" due to blunt force trauma - but all agreed it was assault causing immediate unresponsiveness, even though the child can be heard on the 911 call sighing as she exhaled.

Only science can figure out and tell the truth - which in this case was that the child had an insidious internal head injury called a subdural hematoma, one that slowly pressed on and suffocated her brain, the only public evidence for which is 3 CT images, one taken just before surgery to evacuate the hematoma to relieve the pressure on the brain, one taken right after surgery, and a third taken the next day.

The pre-surgery image shows a calcified chronic hematoma, which can be seen in the top left of the picture by the thin dark area just under the skull, edged by a n internal  ribbon of white, where the calcified membrane of the hematoma is pressing on the brain.  Of all human tissues, only calcium and bone attenuate xrays so much that they show as white in a CT image.  That's a scientific fact, which can be demonstrated by experiment.

It takes a long time for a hematoma to calcify, even though science cannot say exactly how long; history has shown it can be anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.  The only thing that is sure is that it cannot happen within the less than an hour between the 911 call and the time of Hannah's CT scan.

The immediate post-surgery image shows a huge gap in the skull that the surgeon had cut.  The dark-bodied white-ribboned hematoma is gone, and in its place is seen herniated brain tissue, which like a swollen balloon has expanded into the space voided by the surgeon.  The herniation is visible as corrugations of shades of grey, the darker one being the nerve fibres of the brain, and the lighter one being the cell bodies of nerves.

In the image taken the day after, the herniation can be seen to be getting worse.

The Ohio 12th District Appeal Court cited the pathologist's finding that Hannah died from "brain shearing" - the shearing of neuron axons away from their cell bodies - which are visible on the post-operation CT scans as the herniation corrugations, because neuron cell bodies are a lighter shade of grey than axons.  

But the shearing is not there on the pre-surgery scan.  It was caused  by the herniation caused by the surgical operation to evacuate the hematoma.  But it wasn't the surgeon who killed her, he was only unable to save her, because her brain swelling was already so advanced, its increased pressure was suffocating the supply of oxygen to the brain, so poor little Hannah would have died from that without the operation. 

This proves beyond any doubt that Hannah was not killed by an assault causing shearing before the surgery.

The child's father had testified that Hannah was fine the day before she collapsed - but unbeknown to him, she had an insidious injury, probably due to a fall some weeks or months before.  She had been a very active little girl, who loved trampoline jumping off the bed.  Her death was a tragedy, but it wasn't a crime.  Details in one drip too far

Without science, you cannot protect yourself - or society - against the real world evil of snake-oil salesmen who try to pull the wool over your eyes to get away with murder,  physical or metaphorical.

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