A Texas boy has been to the hospital 323 times and has had 13 major surgeries, but according to his father, nothing was ever wrong with him.
At various times since his birth, Christopher Bowen has faced various invasive medical procedures from imagined illnesses. He has had a feeding tube attached to his small intestines, he’s used a wheelchair, and been in hospice. Her father and medical professional say it was all unnecessary. His mother also claimed he had cancer and a rare disease. She also said he suffered from seizures, which doctors were unable to detect, according to the WFAA report.
“There has been a long-standing concern for possible medical child abuse by many providers; however, as in the case, this type of abuse is insidious and hard to pinpoint,” Dr. Michelle Thomas wrote in a 2015 report to CPS, via WFAA.
“I just hate that someone took advantage of him, his own mother,” said Ryan Crawford in a video interview by WFAA.
“She was always saying Christopher was sick. Every single week. Every single month,” Crawford said, via the Star-Telegram. “She would always say, ‘Something’s wrong. He has this. He has that.’ ”
Crawford believes the mother was able to get away with the ruse for years, eventually claiming Christopher was near death, before he was able to convince the courts there was a problem.
“No medical information that I ever had, or any doctors ever had, said that Christopher was dying or said he had some kind of severe illness or disease. She was just able to fool all of the court system and fundraisers, and government assistance,” said Crawford via the Star-Telegram.
“Obviously, she was living life for free and off my son,” he said to WFAA.
Crawford said that over the years he has tried to tell judges that the boy does not need all the medical procedures he is going through, but judges never believed him. Instead, a Dallas judged blocked Crawford from seeing his son in 2012, after he told the judge he didn’t believe the boy was dying.
“Every time I went to court, they made me feel like I was the worst human ever,” said Crawford via the Star-Ledger.
“The judge stated that I needed to accept that my son was dying,” he told WFAA.
He believes it’s because judges are predisposed to believing the mother in a family dispute. Only eight years later was he vindicated with the arrest of his former girlfriend and the removal of Christopher, along with two other children, from her custody, WFAA reported.
“Knowing that your son is being injured but you can’t do anything about it is the worst pain,” Crawford said via video to WFAA.
Crawford is now fighting to get his child home with him. He said the courts have denied his requests to take his son out of foster care.
“Out of everything that has happened, the worst thing you can do is put my children in foster care with strangers,” he said to WFAA. “I need my son in my life and my son needs me in [his] life.”