Woman listed as dead survives crash

By DONG-PHUONG NGUYEN

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 20, 2001

A 20-year-old pregnant woman who authorities reported had died in a car crash in Spring Hill on Saturday is actually alive.

Jill Baum of Brooksville was in critical condition at Tampa General Hospital on Sunday, a day after she was ejected from a car that flipped when her boyfriend lost control of it. Her 8-month-old fetus did not survive.

Troopers in the Florida Highway Patrol's Brooksville office dispatched a fax to local media hours after the 1:40 p.m. accident, listing Baum and the fetus as fatalities.

However, a person who knows Baum called the St. Petersburg Times on Sunday afternoon to say Baum did not die.

FHP officials on Sunday blamed the error on miscommunication among troopers, the hospital to which Baum was flown and a Tampa police officer who filled out paperwork as a part of the investigation.

According to FHP spokesman Lt. Sterling King, a Tampa police officer who was writing a medical examiner's report on the fetus' death was told by Tampa General Hospital that Baum had died as well. He relayed that information to the investigating troopers, who listed it in their report to the media.

"A couple of hours later, we received a call back that (Baum) technically wasn't dead," King said. "She was on life support. That's when we followed up."

In response, Tampa police spokeswoman Katie Hughes said late Sunday she was not certain what role, if any, that officers may have played. Hospital spokesman John Dunn also said he did not know how such a miscommunication might have occurred.

The troopers who investigated the accident told their supervisors that they sent out a revised news release within two hours of the original fax, but neither the St. Petersburg Times nor the FHP communications center in Tampa received it. The Tampa Tribune also incorrectly reported that Baum had died.

Lt. Allan Carter, a shift commander in the communications center, said all FHP faxes from districts within the Tampa Bay area are supposed to be sent to the command center. A dispatcher in the Brooksville office, where investigators Trooper Gail Rodriguez and Cpl. Earl Frasier work, told Carter she faxed it Saturday night.

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