Jehovah’s Witness teen who refused treatment dies

Published 11:22 pm Wednesday, November 28, 2007

MOUNT VERNON — A few hours after a judge ruled that a 14-year-old Jehovah’s Witness sick with leukemia had the right to refuse a blood transfusion — even though that refusal might kill him — the boy has died in a Seattle hospital.

Dennis Lindberg Sr., the biological father of young Dennis Lindberg of Mount Vernon, says his son died Wednesday night at Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle.

Hospital spokeswoman Teri Thomas said she could not confirm or deny anything about the case at the request of the boy’s legal guardian, an aunt.

Earlier Wednesday in Mount Vernon, Skagit County Superior Court Judge John Meyer denied a motion by the state to force the boy to have a blood transfusion. The judge said the eighth-grader understood the decision he was making.

Doctors diagnosed the boy with leukemia on Nov. 6 and began treating him with chemotherapy at Children’s Hospital in Seattle, but stopped a week ago because his blood count was too low, the Skagit Valley Herald reported. The boy refused the transfusion on religious grounds.

However, his birth parents, who do not have custody and flew from Idaho to be at the hearing, believe their son should have had the transfusion and suggested he had been unduly influenced by his legal guardian, his aunt, who is also a Jehovah’s Witness.

Several friends of Lindberg and of his parents attended Wednesday’s hearing, and some ran out crying when the judge announced his decision.

On Tuesday, Lindberg’s doctor told the judge that the boy’s blood was hypoxic, or deficient in oxygen, and that he would not be surprised if the boy died overnight.