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Natasha and Tyronne Stuckey (via Facebook)

According to a July 18, 1993 Cincinnati Enquirer opinion column by business reporter John Eckberg:

(Todd) Schebor, president of Schebor Landscaping Services, and (Jack) Baker, an employee, were working at the Kugler Mill Square Apartments on Beech Street in Bond Hill at 2 p.m. on June 25 when (eight-year-old Natasha Stuckey) nearly drowned.

...(The) two men were mowing the front lawn...when a crowd of adults and children gathered and began to scream for help at the pool...(Schebor) hurried to the water and found a lifeless Natasha. She had bluish skin and wasn't breathing.

Schebor ran to call 911. He returned and within seconds began to perform the Heimlich maneuver...On the third try, vomit and water completely cleared from the girl's airway, and she started breathing again. She regained consciousness immediately.

Paramedics arrived, administered oxygen and took her to the hospital. She was released the next day - fully recovered.

In a previous item, I discussed a variety of questions regarding Eckberg's column and a July 16, 1993 CBS This Morning feature by medical correspondent Howard Torman MD.

Recent e-mails I exchanged with Natasha Stuckey - now 27 and still living in Cincinnati - and her father, Tyronne "Ty" Stuckey, only raised more questions.

Before getting to those, the fundamental problem with the Enquirer column and the CBS feature is that they appear to be the only media coverage of the events that supposedly took place 19 years ago today.

That is, it appears there weren't any straight news reports about this very dramatic, unquestionably newsworthy drowning rescue and subsequent hospitalization.

If there were no news reports, where did Eckberg and CBS obtain the information?

Read both stories and you'll see that landscapers Todd Schebor and Jack Baker are the only sources of the information about the event. 

Missing from both is any original source verification that Natasha Stuckey did, in fact, receive medical care.

Eckberg mentions unnamed paramedics showing up and administering oxygen, an ambulance run, and an unnamed hospital. (And who provided him with that information? He doesn't say.)

There's also no indication in either story that any medical personnel - EMTs, attending physicians, nurses - or a hospital spokesperson were contacted.

What about records for Schebor's 911 call, the ambulance run sheet, and a likely police report? Nothing about those either.

Per the following unedited correspondence, I provided Natasha Stuckey and her father the opportunity to provide minimal documentation that would quickly verify that the near-drowning and subsequent events occurred.

Natasha refused.

I didn't receive a reply from her father.

Screenshot via PeekYou.com

At the end of last month, I received this unsolicited e-mail:


Here's what she was referring to, her name listed among dozens of other subjects of interest on my website:


I couldn't comprehend why such a minor notation would elicit such an anxious response, especially almost two decades after the fact. Why the "shock" and the demand to remove her name from my site?

Plus her life was saved by the Heimlich, right? Wouldn't she want to share the good news?  

Naturally I was curious, so I responded straightaway.


A short while later, I received this:


Huh?


Her explanation:

None of this made sense to me.

Even if she's "sensitive about pools and being around water," why should she care if I or anyone else was interested in the case?

My father certainly was. In 1994, he published this in a peer-reviewed journal:

From The Heimlich Maneuver in Infants and Children by Henry Heimlich MD, Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, April 1994

I don't welcome being told what I may or may not write about. Nevertheless, if she had a legitimate psychological problem as a result of being rescued from drowning almost 20 years ago, I had no desire to contribute to that.

So I presented her with what I considered to be a reasonable offer:


If she was acting in good faith, why should she have a problem with that?

Turns out that was a big problem for her.

Simply obtaining confirmation of the dates is "personal information"? And why would any of this compel her to play the lawyer card?

One more polite approach from me, including a clarification:


Here's her final e-mail (to which I didn't reply):

I'm not sure where she got that information about HIPAA (and about the First Amendment), but I hope she didn't pay her attorney for it.

In fact, the law provides patients with easier access to obtain and to share their medical records. From HIPAA Basics: Medical Privacy in the Electronic Age:


Therefore the decision to withhold verification of the dates of her hospitalization belongs to Ms. Stuckey.

Tyronne "Ty" Stuckey

The next week, as I informed her, I posted my first item in this series.

For a follow-up, I had questions for Natasha's father, Tyronne "Ty" Stuckey, a prominent Cincinnati businessman, spoken word poet, and philanthropist who lends his time to a variety of nonprofits.

For example, according to Lori Fovel, Communications Director at the Cincinnati chapter of the American Heart Association, since 2002 he's been on the board of that organization.

In response to my e-mail inquiry, that evening I received this:



Here's my reply to his request:


I haven't received a reply, but my offer's still on the table.