DHS Ignores Woman’s Pleas For Disabled Brother, Resulting In Tragedy

DHS workers have been charged with willfully neglecting their duties in the death of a disabled 15-year-old boy.

The story, told in heartbreaking detail over at the People magazine website, noted that repeated calls by the boy’s sister, 29-year-old Valerie Wood-Harber, were ignored resulting in the death of Quinten Douglas Wood, who suffered from a debilitating disorder known as Chromosome Ring 9.

The disorder makes it difficult for its victim to eat, walk and talk without outside assistance. Wood’s 48-year-old father Michael Wood was his caregiver, but according to Wood-Harber, he’d pawned off that detail on his younger son Cameron.

It was Cameron, who reached out to his sister by phone telling her that Quinten had “stopped breathing” one fateful day in January of 2013.

Wood-Harber rushed to Oklahoma City to be by Quinten’s side, but by the time she arrived, all she could do was play with his hair and sing him his favorite song, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” He was already dead.

She told People that she “vowed to Quinten” that she would not allow her father to “get away with this.”

As a result of her tenacity and a Change.org petition to open an investigation into Quinten’s death, police arrested Wood and charged him with two felony counts of child neglect.

Additionally, the Oklahoma Department of Human Services workers that were overseeing Quentin were charged, and one, worker Rachelle Qualls, 25, has already pled guilty “because she didn’t fulfill her duties but she was overworked,” her attorney noted.

It’s not known at this time how supervisor Paul Kim Myers will plead.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time that DHS has failed to protect a child. A previous report from The Inquisitr noted that Arizona child welfare workers had failed to investigate more than 6,500 child abuse claims.

The agency is notoriously understaffed to follow up on all of the cases that are brought to its attention, but through the dogged determination of Wood-Harber, that’s about to change (in Oklahoma anyway).

Valerie’s campaigning has led to the passage of the Quinten Douglas Wood Act of 2014, which states that Oklahoma DHS workers must consider a disabled child’s inability to communicate into account when investigating child abuse and neglect.

This would essentially up the priority level for individuals who cannot speak for themselves. While it’s too late to save Quinten, it could lead to many saved lives in the future. As for Wood-Harber, she said that she will not be pursuing a lawsuit against DHS, even though she could.

“I don’t want money or anything from his death,” she said. “I just don’t want this to happen to any other child.”

What do you think should happen to the father and the DHS employees accused of allowing this to happen?