Dori’s miracle baby

KIRO’s Dori Monson believes prayer helped save the life of his second daughter from a medical mistake. (AP file photo)

An Oregon couple has pleaded guilty to criminal charges after their teenage son died of an infection from a burst appendix as they chose prayer over medical care.

Russel and Brandi Bellew each pleaded guilty in Creswell, Oregon to charges of criminally negligent homicide, as part of an agreement with prosecutors, The Register Guard reported. They’ll spend the next five years on probation and have to contact a doctor whenever any of their six surviving children get sick enough to miss school for more than a day.

Should they be punished more? It’s an issue that hits close to home for Dori Monson, who believes prayer helped save his second daughter.

When Monson’s wife was pregnant, they were told by a new doctor she had miscarried. A procedure was scheduled to remove the developing fetus that night.

They were devastated. But his sister, a woman of strong faith, insisted the doctor was wrong.

“My sister said ‘I’m going to pray that the doctor is wrong.’ And I said, ‘oh come on, the doctor’s not wrong’,” Monson says.

His wife was also insistent the doctor was mistaken, so the couple put off the procedure and went to their old doctor for a second opinion.

“I’m thinking all these women in my life, my sister and my wife are all in denial. And I go to the doctor with her and the doctor says ‘I see a heart beat’ and I go ‘what does that mean?’ ‘It means you didn’t miscarry’,” Monson recounts.

After another ultrasound, doctors determined Monson’s wife was fine.

“It was one of the most amazing sights I have seen in my entire life. For 24 hours, I was certain my wife miscarried.”

Months later, Monson’s wife delivered a healthy, normal baby girl.

“If we had just relied on the medical community instead of my wife’s instincts and my sister’s prayers, we wouldn’t have the daughter that we just took to college Saturday,” he says.

But what about the Oregon couple? Monson says he’s conflicted, because “I think what the parents did was reprehensible. A ruptured appendix is so treatable, this boy should not have died.” But by the same token, he admits he has a tough time saying parents should be forced to rely solely on the medical community.

“If we had done that, we wouldn’t have our middle daughter now,” he says.