Infant Drowns In Batch Of Homebrew...

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dstranger99

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Here's a new one on me.............:(


Little Lexi Ribbonleg drowned in a batch of homebrew while her mother, who had earlier been seen drinking the alcohol, slept soundly near her in their mobile home in a remote northern Alberta community.

The baby was head down in a crate of the fermented potato-yeast concoction, her legs sticking up in the air.

[...]

Their mother, Viola Ribbonleg, entered a guilty plea Tuesday to a charge of criminal negligence causing death for failing to provide adequate child care. The 32-year-old woman is to be sentenced in Fort Vermilion court July 15.

Court heard that Ribbonleg's son saw her and another man drinking brew in the trailer on the night of May 28. The next morning, Ribbonleg was drinking again and her son believed she was drunk. She asked her son to come home at lunch and babysit for the afternoon.

When he returned with two friends, the door was locked, so one of them climbed in through a window.


The boy's mother was sleeping on the floor. Two men were asleep on one of the couches in the living room.

The boy pulled the baby out of the brew, which was in the crate beside a couch, and then woke up his mother.

The document says Ribbonleg got upset, tried to wake the infant and told her, "I love you." Clutching her child's limp body, the woman ran to a nursing station.

As paramedics tried to revive the baby, the mother knelt on the floor, crying. When they declared Lexi dead, Ribbonleg begged staff to do more to save her and hit one of the paramedics on the chest.

She picked up the child and refused to put her down, repeating "dead baby, dead baby" and some words in Cree.

She also tried to breast feed the dead child.

[...]

The document says Peters told investigators Ribbonleg refused to let go of Lexi for about three hours, even as the little body turned cold and blue.

The document says the baby's diaper was dry, but her fingers were wrinkled from being immersed in the alcohol.

[...]

Ribbonleg "kept looking in Lexi's mouth and saying that Lexi must have choked on something ... She said she and some other men had been outside the house when this happened to Lexi."

[...]

The document says an autopsy confirmed the child drowned.

Toxicology tests also showed the homebrew contained about eight per cent ethyl alcohol, slightly higher than in beer.



http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/02/27/viola-ribbonleg-baby-homebrew_n_4869211.html#
 
Tragic. I've seen things like this on the Northern Cheyenne and Nez Perce reservations. I have to say, I don't appreciate them calling it homebrew, because what they made is very different from what we make. That is like calling prison squaky homebrew.
 
There is nothing more upsetting (at least to me as a parent of two beautiful girls) than parents that neglect their kids or even let them die. It makes me want to run home and cradle my kids! Those people just shouldn't be allowed to have kids. Like @progmac said: I'm so sad now.
 
That's sad. I can't even begin to fathom what must be going through brother's mind now... He was the one to find her and take her out of the bucket while 3 adults, including their mother, were passed out drunk?? That is truly a tragedy.
 
very sad...

the last sentence of the article was cut off in the post

it was as follows

The person who made the brew told police it was a mix of water, rolled oats, sugar, potatoes and yeast. It had been left to ferment for about a week in a plastic bag inside the crate, typically used to hold milk cartons.
 
Okay. It sounds like she was drunk. Drinking last night. Drinking that morning. Asleep on the floor during the day. But, we don't know that. Maybe she doesn't have a proper bed. She may always sleep on the floor. Maybe she works nights. Maybe the kids got it wrong about what she was drinking. There's a lot the article doesn't say.

Point is, is this woman guilty of sleeping while having kids? Certainly a parent must sleep at some time.

What is a crate of brew? I'll ferment in anything, but I've never fermented in an open crate.

And just to say, this could have been anything. The kid could have drowned in an open "crate" of water the same as this brew.
 
There were two other men there, as well as mom. Someone should have been able to watch the infant. If it was a case of "everyone needs to sleep sometime," and mom was the only person home with the baby, maybe I can see that side of it... I have an infant so I know all about sleep deprivation, but keeping your baby alive comes first. A crib, a playpen, anything to at least keep the baby in a safe, contained area while the adults slept would have prevented this.
 
You have to obtain a license to drive a car, to open a business, to cut someone's hair for a living, but any a-hole can have a kid.

Drinking and childcare don't mix. What a tragedy.
 
How very sad and unthinkably tragic. Poor little girl... my heart is broken. God bless that poor child.
 
Okay. It sounds like she was drunk. Drinking last night. Drinking that morning. Asleep on the floor during the day. But, we don't know that. Maybe she doesn't have a proper bed. She may always sleep on the floor. Maybe she works nights. Maybe the kids got it wrong about what she was drinking. There's a lot the article doesn't say.

Point is, is this woman guilty of sleeping while having kids? Certainly a parent must sleep at some time.

What is a crate of brew? I'll ferment in anything, but I've never fermented in an open crate.

And just to say, this could have been anything. The kid could have drowned in an open "crate" of water the same as this brew.

LOL. You...you...ahaha. Thank you for this, lol.
 
Okay. It sounds like she was drunk. Drinking last night. Drinking that morning. Asleep on the floor during the day. But, we don't know that. Maybe she doesn't have a proper bed. She may always sleep on the floor. Maybe she works nights. Maybe the kids got it wrong about what she was drinking. There's a lot the article doesn't say.

Point is, is this woman guilty of sleeping while having kids? Certainly a parent must sleep at some time.

What is a crate of brew? I'll ferment in anything, but I've never fermented in an open crate.

And just to say, this could have been anything. The kid could have drowned in an open "crate" of water the same as this brew.

You can't possibly be serious in defending this woman??? There is more than enough information in the article to come to the conclusion that the mother was grossly negligent. I'm so sick of parents and other adults responsible for young children getting off scott free after their negligent behavior caused a horrible "accident." It makes no difference if the vat of liquid is water or alcohol. It makes no difference if the woman was drunk, stoned or simply sleeping. She did not take the necessary measures to insure the safety of her child. Yes accidents happen. I'm not talking about real accidents that can sometimes occur due to brief lapses of attention to children while engaging in normal activities. I'm talking about kids being left in 130 degree cars. Kids who die when their parents drive drunk. Kids who drown in pools while no one is paying any attention to them. Kids who are shot because fire arms are not properly safeguarded.

We look at the loss that the parents are enduring, and we say, oh, that poor family - haven't they suffered enough. Well I'm sorry, but when the victim is a defenseless child, totally dependent on an adult to care for them and their safety, and that adult fails to perform their responsibility, legal punishment is more than justified. Maybe if a few more parents were thrown in jail for not safeguarding the life of their child, a few more parents might stop and think. Or maybe not... But it would sure make me feel like we're at least trying to correct the situation.

Steps down off of soapbox.
 
You have to obtain a license to drive a car, to open a business, to cut someone's hair for a living, but any a-hole can have a kid.

Drinking and childcare don't mix. What a tragedy.
Who do you think should have the power to decide who deserves to have children and who doesn't? Offhand, I can't think of anyone I'd trust with the job.

It's a tragedy the child died. But it's kind of a freak accident - and after reading the story, I feel almost as sorry for the distraught mother as for the chld. I'm sure it never crossed her mind that her baby might drown in that stuff. Just like it never occurred to my mother that I might drown in a bucket of mop water she hadn't gotten around to emptying....
 
I'll admit that the article was so strangely written that I was certain it was a hoax. Unfortunately, it seems to be true.

A tragedy for sure, especially for the young man. I hope he's able to rise above the hand he's been dealt.
 
Who do you think should have the power to decide who deserves to have children and who doesn't? Offhand, I can't think of anyone I'd trust with the job.

It's a tragedy the child died. But it's kind of a freak accident - and after reading the story, I feel almost as sorry for the distraught mother as for the chld. I'm sure it never crossed her mind that her baby might drown in that stuff. Just like it never occurred to my mother that I might drown in a bucket of mop water she hadn't gotten around to emptying....

I am a die hard libertarian, so while I may not like these people, unless there was something that should have been done to protect the child from obvious danger, they have the right to be idiots.

As a parent, I have been terrified by the freak accidents that happen to all children. It seems to be in the nature of a child to seek danger and accidents.

Being drunk in the middle of the day, passed out, while caring for an infant, seems like gross negligence to me.
 
Seems like a clear case of stupidity and negligence. Even if you are an alcoholic and just HAVE to have that morning binge, at least have the decency to protect your child by finding someone to take care of it while you are drinking. Even the cops will help you out with this one.
 

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