Who is to blame for Tim Whattler’s death?
July 29, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
In February of 2006, 17-year-old Tim Whattler hung himself from a doorknob in his room in a psychatric unit Beech Court in Bridgwater, in England, just six hours after he had been admitted. Whattler had Asperger’s syndrome and had a history of difficulty with both educational and psychiatric placements; he had attempted suicide before and had several self-inflicted cuts on his arms. The coroner, Michael Rose, ruled that staff were not guilty of neglect but needed more training in Asperger’s Syndrome, as reported by the May 10 BBC News. The July 30th Telegraph chronicles Whattler’s life. He was ten years old, his parents, Dean and Elizabeth Whattler note, when “his life started to go badly wrong.”
The Whattlers behave with extraordinary control, but there is no disguising their devastation at the waste of their son’s life – one of 200 patients a year who kill themselves in supposedly safe psychiatric units.
“He should never have died where he did, when he did,” says his mother. “He was sent to that unit to be kept safe.”
He needed understanding, routine, familiar people and constant activity. He got constant change, little understanding from so-called experts, spasmodic education and medication that may have exacerbated his problems.
…….
The Whattlers feel robbed not only of their son but also of what they consider a fair hearing. At the inquest, there was no jury, important evidence was not presented, and neither they nor the expert who wrote an independent report were allowed to speak. They may bring a civil case.
Looking at Tim Whattler’s pictures and reading about how he was shuffled from placement to placement—and some residential, away from his parents—-I feel heartbroken. I think about how my own son Charlie fell into a very tough period when he was turning seven; how a tumult of placements and professionals were tried; how there were some very terrible moments when no one seemed able to do the right thing, find something that would help. Tim Whattler was ten years old when, after being “constantly in trouble” at school—he had a high IQ and particularly excelled at math—-his parents found him lying the snow by the dustbins; he hoped “never to wake up.” And now that has happened: How to keep such a tragedy from occurring again?
Mike Stanton at Action for Autism has also posted about Tim Whattler.
Kristina,
These reports are deeply disturbing to me, having a 12-year-old diagnosed with Asperger’s at age 5. We’re looking at a very different set of behaviors from Ely’s diagnosis of “severe autism”. I am understanding the “spectrum” of autism, thanks to having two very different children dealing with two very different types of autism. I really can’t decide which “version” is more difficult to deal with, as a family.
And I can’t figure out which is more difficult for the child to deal with….one who can speak very well, speaking, in fact, like a “little professor”, or the one who really can’t speak much at all.
Honestly, I don’t know what’s going on in the mind of the 12-year-old, whereas it’s pretty obvious with the 5-year-old. I always tend to worry more about the 12-year-old, NT or otherwise. Heck, I try to keep in touch with the mind of the 15-year-old NT girl, regardless!
Just….kids. Handful, regardless.
AJ
Handful, mindful……… So you’ve 3 minds to keep track of and then your own……..
As I read the Times article, I kept thinking of how hard, and how horrible, it must have been for Tim Whattler to be placed in so many environments without, it seems, anyone with a clear sense of all of his needs. I can’t imagine how my son would fare in an institutional setting, away from us and all of his beloved things that give him security: That would trouble him more than a little. When I have a student in class who responds in a “different” way, I often think now that this student may have “something” and needs, perhaps, a different kind of attention from me as a teacher and understanding—–I just keep thinking of the part in the Times article about Tim Whattler’s difficulties at school with teachers. Charlie too laughs sometimes when being scolded and I can really see how this could be taken the wrong way.
Kristina: I remember in third grade having to write (50 times, or something thereabouts): “I will not laugh while I am being reprimanded”.
Kristina,
I recognize the “laugh”. Oftentimes my son is laughing at the “movie in his mind” having little to do with the situation at hand.
My mantra at a host of parent-teacher meetings was “It’s not about you, it’s about the disease”, as I addressed the staff. I bristled when they blamed my son for his inadequacies.
Ego is a powerful force, whether it be doctors or teachers, it can blind progress.
I ache for the Whattler family, and Tim’s devastating pain. He was not safe, even from himself.
Given that there is no magic bullet to address depresson in ASD, I am hopeful that there are medication supports out there, as Temple Grandin found.
reslilientmom
I’ll never forget our conflict with the middle school, when the liaison officer told us that Amigo could end up in foster care. He was posturing and acting tough, and even though I know that we would not lose our boy, it still hurt deeply. I ache for this family and their loss — their many losses.
Charlie chewed up 2 pairs of headphones in 3 days. I’ve been trying to think of the best way to tell him that when he does this, it means there is nothing to listen to his iPod with. He has been laughing—I’ve seen this reaction in him before when he does “something wrong”—-it could mean that tomorrow he may get upset when he finds he has no headphones. Or he may still laugh and I know I need to calm my own feelings….. I’m still trying to think of a better way to handle this.