Baby death probed at Fayette inquest
A Fayette County Coroner’s jury is continuing to hear testimony this afternoon from medical experts and family members regarding the death of a North Union Township baby last December.
Derek V. Miskanin Jr. was pronounced dead at 1:25 a.m. Dec. 4, 2010 at Uniontown Hospital after he was found by a home care nurse and his parents not breathing at the couple’s home on Bute Road.
Coroner Dr. Phillip E. Reilly said that the tentative cause of death was determined to be failure to maintain airway control and the tentative manner of death was ruled accidental, but added that an inquest into the child’s death was requested.
Miskanin, who was a special care case after being born more than three months premature, was assisted in breathing by a tracheotomy and also had other special care needs after spending about four months hospitalized following his birth.
His father, Derek Miskanin Sr., told jurors this morning that he had turned over care of his son to nurse Jackie Yeagley of Pediatric Services of America, shorlty after 11 p.m. Dec. 3 and retired to his bedroom where he was alerted by Yeagley about an hour later that there was a problem with the child.
When he arrived in his son’s room he said that the seven-month-old was blue and Yeagley was performing CPR.
For full details on the inquest, see tomorrow’s HeraldStandard.com.