Mom gets 20 years for feces in IV

AUSTIN (KXAN) - The Austin woman who contaminated her 3-year-old's IV tubes with feces has been sentenced to 20 years in prison as part of a plea agreement, court officials said.

Emily Beth McDonald, 25, had been facing a possible life in prison sentence on an injury to a child charge.

"It's a very unique case, and paradoxically enough, she was trying to do good when she smeared that fecal matter." said Bob Phillips, McDonald's attorney. "She thought that by doing so, she would cause the child to spike a fever and that the antibiotics that were being prescribed would be extended rather than curtailed. And unlike the way it's been characterized, she was not trying to kill the child. She was in her own way, albeit in a very unwise and... psychologically twisted way, trying to help the child."

"She's a person that decided to harm her child, and we held her accountable to that," said Rob Drummond with the Travis County District Attorney's office.

McDonald's daughter was being treated at Dell Children's Hospital beginning in April 2009 when she was suffering from a high fever and chronic diarrhea.

Hospital officials had determined that the toddler had contracted serious infections caused by unusual organism that are found in feces.

Unsure of the infections' origins, they a placed surveillance camera in the child's room.

The hospital watched the surveillance video and found McDonald putting fecal matter on her finger from the child's diaper and rubbing it on the inside of her child's catheter. These types of actions are life-threatening to the child, as they could cause sepsis.

After seeing the video, hospital staff called the child abuse unit of the Austin Police Department and alerted them of the situation. When the police arrived, McDonald confessed to manipulating her daughter's feeding tube by wiping the end of it with feces.

McDonald, who has two other children, admitted to doing this five times during her daughter's stay at the hospital, police said.

"Even though this is an extremely rare case, medical child abuse is child abuse and so is any other method of harming a child," Drummond said.

"She's a young woman, but very strong, mature young lady. And unlike the way she's been characterized in certain media reports, she's also a very fine person who loves her children, but was just under a great deal of psychological stress and trauma," Phillips said. "And that led her to some very unwise choices."

McDonald's three young children, all under the age of 10, will be under the care of their father. As part of the plea deal, McDonald could be eligible for parole within the next 10 years.