Deseret News | Reader comments: Mother says daughter just tried to help boy who died

Reader comments
Mother says daughter just tried to help boy who died

let her go | 3:16 p.m. Sept. 29, 2008

she is not at fault. Another prosecuting attorney looking for a high conviction rate?

Bill Dikant | 3:37 p.m. Sept. 29, 2008

Lets see, a 14 year old dies from Alcohol poisoning as a result of a 23 year old Woman, who should have KNOWN better. Taking and place him in greater harm by taking him home instead of the E.R. where the Boy would get the proper care in my opinion, has earned the charges placed. Mommy, the helping part would have been the Hospital, not a private residence. Neither of you has an ounce of brain power.
Bill Dikant, Victim Advocate,
Castleton, N.Y. 12033

AnnieB | 4:23 p.m. Sept. 29, 2008

Bill Dikant -

A 14-year-old did not die as a result of a 23-year-old woman. He died as a result of drinking too much alcohol. Whether or not this woman is guilty of anything will remain to be seen. I do not drink alcohol and I am not familiar with what would be considered a dangerous state of intoxication. Time and time again, I have seen movies where people are passed out drunk and are sent home in a taxi or given a ride and left to sleep it off. I'm not sure that I would have known to take him to the ER either. If she was truly attempting to help him, I don't see how she could be charged as guilty. Hopefully, the courts will be fair and discerning in deciding her fate.

Comments continue below

Linda Ridley | 5:08 p.m. Sept. 29, 2008

Why is she and not his parents responsible for his actions and where a bouts. So because she took him home rather than just leave him there itï¿½s her fault he dies? Give me a break. One tragedy is enough, we donï¿½t need another one.
Linda Ridley, Take responsibility for your own kids advocate
Layton UT

WildeWest | 8:29 p.m. Sept. 29, 2008

Do you know what kind of people we are going to become? Don't help anyone at anytime no matter who it is because you will get convicted. Stay homea and do nothing. Nice isn' it?

MEL | 10:09 p.m. Sept. 29, 2008

This poor woman should not be guilty. All she did was help and now they want to convict her for helping come on. They can leave a baby in the car in the heat and he dies, but no charges. and they want to prosecute this poor lady.

lisa | 10:32 p.m. Sept. 29, 2008

I do not think that Candice is guilty of this one. She was doing what anybody else would have done. How many times have all of us been a designated driver, just because you drove someone home makes you responsible... That is not right. Where were the parents when the 14 year old boy was breaking into the restaurant and stealing alcohol* The parents should take responsibility for not knowing where there child was. Candice is not a medical doctor how the he!! would she have known that this kid had alcohol posioning. I think that this case is very disturbing and its already a tragedy due to poor decisions of a group of teenagers and doesn't need to ruin Candice's life. This group of teenagers need to take responsibility for their actions and should be
charged, not Candice.

Enough of your idiocy Billy boy | 10:57 p.m. Sept. 29, 2008

Bill Dikant,

"Lets see, a 14 year old dies from Alcohol poisoning as a result of a 23 year old Woman, who should have KNOWN better."

She did not provide him with the alcohol nor would she have had reason to believe that he had consumed enough alcohol to cause death since she wasn't with him at the time he consumed the alcohol.

"Taking and place him in greater harm by taking him home instead of the E.R. where the Boy would get the proper care in my opinion, has earned the charges placed."

There was no way for her to know that the boy had consumed enough alcohol to warrant a visit to an emergency room. People and children get drunk all the time and more often they do not die or need a trip to the E.R.

If this young woman had never drank in her life she would not have known how much alcohol was needed to cause death or recognize the symptoms of an alcohol overdose.

"Mommy, the helping part would have been the Hospital, not a private residence. Neither of you has an ounce of brain power."

It is arrogant comments like this that offend.

Did friend rat out the owner? | 11:15 p.m. Sept. 29, 2008

When a 23 year old woman who is only 9 years older than the boy is placed in the situation of deciding what course of action to take she's not very likely to choose taking someone who appears to be sleeping to the hospital. The article isn't quite clear that she was the responsible party.

It also implies that she was staying at the home of one of the boy's mothers who he had called and who had asked her to go get them and take them back to her home. It would appear from the article that she was only following the direction of an older adult who was responsible for one of the boys.

From the article we can't be sure that the home she was staying in was the home of the friend's mother but it seems fairly obvious that she wasn't alone in the house since someone else discovered that the boy was not breathing.

The question then becomes why that person wasn't charged, why the mother of the friend wasn't charged and why the restaurant owner wasn't charged. Collard didn't pull the idea that the boy's obtained the alcohol from him out of thin air.

uncannygunman | 11:17 p.m. Sept. 29, 2008

Doesn't Utah have a "Good Samaritan" law to protect people like this woman who try to help others but do so less than effectively?

????? | 4:13 a.m. Sept. 30, 2008

If you flooded every ER in the state with every person that passed out from drinking too much alcohol there would be no room for the people who are having heat attacks, strokes, trauma, ect... I fail to understand why this young woman is charged as she is. She was not a provider to underage drinking. This is another tragic case of poor judgement on behalf of the kids involved who thougt that getting drunk would be fun or funny. When will we start making the kids or anyone else responsible for their own actions. It is always blame someone else cuz I was stupid

someone | 4:42 a.m. Sept. 30, 2008

Lets forget the fact that she has no medical training, and lets just think about the fact that she is an adult and she was aware of a crime, 32a-12-209 of the Utah Code says it is illegal for someone under 21 to consume or possess alcohol. Legaly she was obligated to contact the police to report the crime. Had she done this the police would have seen the signs of the alcohol poisoning and had the proper medical attention summoned. Whether the charge is the right one, the ethical part is that if she had reported the crime, and not tried to conceal it, which is another crime, the 14 year old boy would have received medical treatment, whether he had lived or died no one knows. I think that is the part that the readers should focus on, so in the future people understand the legal requirements and follow them.

Dan Evensen | 7:00 a.m. Sept. 30, 2008

Bill, you're not writing in German. You don't need to capitalize every noun. It makes you look like an idiot.

You should also make a logical case for your viewpoint. As others have stated, the woman in question did not give the child alcohol. Why should she be prosecuted, while those who could have prevented this event from happening in the first place don't even get warned?

Kari | 7:41 a.m. Sept. 30, 2008

The charge against Candace is absurd. She obviously had no intent to do harm. It was an unfortunate accident. I am sure she feels bad enough about the incident without the legal system getting involved and placing blame.

Anonymous | 8:29 a.m. Sept. 30, 2008

"Yeah, my friend's passed out and we don't know what to do."

"I'm so sorry but I can't be involved."...click.

I know that's exactly what I'm going to do (now).

a mom | 8:34 a.m. Sept. 30, 2008

The article doesn't say he was taken home. He was taken to the house where Candice was staying. A minor child taken somewhere other than to his home or the hospital sounds like kidnapping to me.

Re: a mom | 9:16 a.m. Sept. 30, 2008

"The article doesn't say he was taken home. He was taken to the house where Candice was staying. A minor child taken somewhere other than to his home or the hospital sounds like kidnapping to me."

Sounds like you didn't read the story closely to me.

The friends called the boy's mother. She was not home. It sounds like nobody was home. The mother was out of town. So the 23-year-old should have just dropped him off at home alone?

Kidnapping? Really?

Sheesh!

Casey | 10:21 a.m. Sept. 30, 2008

I don't know about you guys, but I don't see anything negligent here. She went to help someone and from what she could see, all he needed help with is to have a place to sleep it off. She wasn't there to see how much alcohol he had drank. I am willing to bet that the charges get dropped unless there is some signifact part of the story not being told here.

Criminal Law Attorney | 10:39 a.m. Sept. 30, 2008

Ridiculous. I hope she gets a good attorney. There is noway she will be convicted.

Charging someone like this with a crime puts a chilling effect on helping someone for fear of being prosecuted.

2/3 aint bad | 10:41 a.m. Sept. 30, 2008

Candace had a few choices to make and while we don't know the whole story she had three choices to make and made two correctly.
1- Candace gets a call saying some kid needs some help. She chooses to help (right)
2- Candace finds out the kid is drunk. She can choose to leave him there or take him with her. (right)
3 - she takes him home thinking he is passed out and will wake up in the morning instead of taking him to the ER. (wrong - but by innocence - funny word huh!)

I think most honest, caring people would have done the same as Candace. If you knew someone was passed out from drinking, are you going to be checking their pulse? I don't think so. Any decent attorney should be able to overturn the charges against her.

Anonymous | 12:25 p.m. Sept. 30, 2008

There's my argument: don't get involved. No good deed goes unpunished by the State.

Who to Blame | 1:38 p.m. Sept. 30, 2008

Why are we always looking for someone else to blame. This is obviously clear cut. The person responsible for the death of the kid is the dead kid himself. You can lay blame on the parents for perhaps not teaching their child about the potential disasters of alcohol. Perhaps the parents did teach, but the kid didn't take it serious. You can blame the friends he was with, but it doesn't sound like they forced him to drink the alcohol. The kid made the choice to consume the amount of alcohol he did and he paid the price. The blame falls squarely on the individual himself. I think to blame the Girl Driver is as poor a misjudgement as the girl made in not taking the kid to the hospital. People need to take responsibility for their own actions and the consequences of those actions.

Lots of blame | 3:36 p.m. Sept. 30, 2008

The article says:
"Horrocks consumed so much alcohol that he lost consciousness"
You don't have to have medical training to know that if someone is in that condition, you get them to the hospital or at least call 911 immediately.
There is lots of blame to go around here, so this lady is not the only one at fault. But she definitely bears some of the blame.
I don't understand the people that are saying she didn't do anything wrong.

John Harvey | 3:41 p.m. Sept. 30, 2008

Response to someone and 2/3 ain't bad

1. The mother should have called the police - she called Candice.
2. It is only 2 out of 4 the fourth choice was to report the crime.

BH | 3:45 p.m. Sept. 30, 2008

If Candice is guilty of Homocide by neglect, then so are others.

the young man that called his mother should have called an ambulance. That is just as much neglectful as Candice. The mother of the boy that made the call should have called 911. Perhaps she is guilty of neglect. What about the restaurant owners who failed to adequately secure the liquor? Wouldn't they be responsible. And the kid's parents. Aren't they responsible by not sufficiently protecting the kid from such a terrible risk?

Hey, here is a novel idea! Maybe the 14 year old was responsible for his own death!!

Joe | 4:03 p.m. Sept. 30, 2008

A person being passed out is different from a person sleeping. Sleeping means that when some shakes you or talks to you, then you wake up. Passed out means you are unresponsive is your body's way of indicating you have a problem.

Candice agrees to pick up a 14 year old boy. At this point, she has, as an adult, accepted responsibility for the underage kid. She then makes the medical diagnosis as to whether the amount of alcohol he has drunk is sufficient to pose a medical problem or not. Of course, she has no idea how much the kid has drunk, so she chooses to error on the side of recklessness rather than caution.

She then takes the kid home to her "treatment facility," since she has accepted responsibility for him and diagnosed him, and puts him in a room, the treatment she provides being letting him sleep it off. How often does she check on his progress? We don't know, but it is another party that eventually determines that Horrocks isn't breathing. So, Candice has apparently neglected her patient and allows him to die through failure to properly monitor and treat.

Anonymous | 4:12 p.m. Sept. 30, 2008

People need to take personal responsibility for their own actions she was driving drunk and she chose to do it. quit justifying your mistake

Joe | 4:13 p.m. Sept. 30, 2008

The young man who called Candice is apparently not an adult. Therefore, we expect less judgment from him than we expect from the sober adult.

Let's say you come across a kid that is sitting with a cut on his leg and an axe is sitting next to him. You think "I know about axes and cuts" so you decided the cut isn't that bad and you take him to your home. He is still bleeding, so you put him in a room alone and wait to see how things turn out. The kid is holding a towel over the cut so you can't really tell how bad the cut is, so you assume things will be ok.

Later on, a friend check on the kid and finds he has bled to death. The problem wasn't picking up the kid. The problem started when she decided to take him home rather than to a hospital where they could properly diagnose the problem with him. Then neglecting him was simply wrong.

Not knowing that alcohol can kill you? What's wrong; haven't we had enough celebrity deaths recently? Or do we need a warning label on the booze?

Stop excusing stupidity!

We're all Guilty... | 5:38 p.m. Sept. 30, 2008

i think it's completely ridiculous that candice is being charged for negligence of any kind. as a few others have stated; most people would do what she did and just take a drunk person home to sleep it off. That's probably what I would do. I guess that means we should all go to jail for negligence? Candice was being a good samaritan. She did her part to take the boy out of a harmful situation, and took him home to rest. I'm sure if she had any idea he had alcohol poisoning, she would have taken him to the hospital. As others have said; if she is found guilty, it will cause people to think twice before helping someone. I hope the courts have some mercy and realize she was just trying to help.

RE: Joe | 7:13 p.m. Sept. 30, 2008

Clearly some people just like to fire others up.

Age doesn't always correlate to wisdom & experience. 23 is just a few years out of high school and I wouldn't expect all 23 year olds to make as wise of a decision as someone in their 40's. I believe that an overwhelming majority of people who pass out from drinking alcohol do not die. Look up the statistics if you disagree. Someone wants to blame someone else for the responsibility of this boy's death. Who drank the alcohol? Who disobeyed the law? Unless someone can prove intentional negligence, I don't believe Candice is guilty of any crime. I believe many others would have done the same thing Candice did. I believe that justice will be served.

Bruce | 7:23 p.m. Sept. 30, 2008

A good samaritan to hide the crime?
He was a juvenile and was drunk. She knew that and chose not to handle it appropriately.

Say she took him to he ER | 8:34 p.m. Sept. 30, 2008

and there it was found out he was just drunk and needed to go sleep it off. That'll be $200, please.

Now, does the mother thank this woman for taking the boy to the ER to be sure, or does she say, "He was just drunk. I asked you to take him home. I'm not paying that $200. That's on you."

To Dr. Joe | 8:39 p.m. Sept. 30, 2008

Joe,

"A person being passed out is different from a person sleeping."

There is nothing in the article that indicates that the boy wasn't simply sleeping when she picked him up. That's all in your mind.

"Sleeping means that when some shakes you or talks to you, then you wake up. Passed out means you are unresponsive is your body's way of indicating you have a problem."

There is no evidence that she wasn't able to wake him or that he didn't talk to her prior to becoming unconscious. If you knew anything about alcohol overdose, which it is apparent that you don't, you would know it normally takes hours for symptoms to become obvious to a layperson.

The boy falling asleep was probably the major cause of his death since it is during sleep that alcohol overdose leads to death. Being in an unconscious state is only one symptom and was unlikely in this situation, and if present not the most observable, so it may well be that she thought he was sleeping because that is what he was.

Unless she knew sleeping would kill him she would have let him sleep. You are demonstrating your own ignorance.

judi | 9:23 p.m. Sept. 30, 2008

When I was 25, I babysat for the child of an alcoholic neighbor. Once his mother came in at 1:00 a.m. to use my phone. I heard her tell someone she had taken an overdose. Then before she got to the door to leave I heard a noise that sounded more like she was thrown to the floor than fell. I immediately went to her, found her sound asleep, breathing deeply. I watched her sleep like a baby for a while (she was unconscious, I later learned). By the time I called for help, it was too late to pump her stomach. Thank God, she lived in spite of my error in judgment.

Even if charges are dropped (which they never should have been made) she will suffer the rest of her life. It's been 40 years for me and I'm not finished asking myself the same question over and over "why didn't you call for help right away?" And my "victim" lived!

When mistakes become criminal, we all better watch our backs.

the mom | 6:24 p.m. Oct. 1, 2008

Before people,like Bill,place judgement and journalists print information,maybe they should get all the facts or read a copy of the police report. Candice was asked to pick up her boyfreinds nephew & 2 friends,not Micade,who the other 3 said was an acquaintance from school. He had consumed large amounts of hard alcohol hours before Candice arrived & the other 3 had been taking care of him. They loaded him in her car & they carried him into their bedroom. There is about a 45 minute timeline from when he was picked up to the time 911 was called. The sad reality is the damage was already done. His alcohol level was .471 - enough to kill a seasoned adult alcoholic. Yes,Candice made a poor judgement call,but she made the best decision she was capable of with the amount of medical knowledge she has, none. Trying to help someone does not constitute kidnapping or homicide charges. The reality is a 14 year old drank himself to death while his friends watched. His parents had to make the agonizing decision to remove him from life support. Heartbreaking is an gross understatement!

Take a Stand - Write the DA | 5:14 p.m. Oct. 4, 2008

Sadly, Candice will likely have heartache all her life. I'm sorry for her. She desperately needs public support!! Most people would have done the same thing. How can she be held to a higher standard?

Taking that boy home to sleep it off is what most of us would have done in the same situation.

And Joe, you are SO wrong! As a former medic, I was taught the ABCs of triage...Airway, Breathing, Circulation. This boy apparently was breathing, he wasn't bleeding, there was no obstruction to his airway.

Your cut leg example is not even comparable. This kid was drunk. Unless he was having showing distressed breathing, how would Candice have known his blood alcohol was dangerously high?

Alcohol poisoning looks no different that being drunk...it's the same thing. Our society educated Candice to ake him home to "sleep it off". The weight of the Good Samaratian Law must prove she was educated or experienced enough beyond that to have known to take him to the ER.

All who disagree should write or fax the DA JoAnn Stringham at 152 E. 100 N., Vernal, UT 84078
Tel 435.781.5436 or fax 435.781.5428.

Send a clear message.

Add your comment

Comments are monitored. Any comments found to be abusive, offensive, off-topic, misrepresentative, more than 200 words or containing URLs will not be posted.

Words Remaining

E-mail address: For internal use only. We may want to contact you to publish your comment (not your e-mail address) in the newspaper or for a separate story idea.