Family reels: Children, friends rush to acid victim's side; surprise at hospital brings fear, rage
(Editor's note: This story was originally published on July 12, 2005)
Erin Burtoft and her husband, Greg, were putting in a yard at their new home in Springfield Township when a frantic Angela Wood, her mother's neighbor, left a message on their answering machine.
"Something has happened and you need to call me right away!"
Instantly Erin, caked in mud from working outdoors, thought her mother, Becky Slabaugh, had discovered Bill's dead body. A few days earlier, distraught about the couple's impending divorce, William F. Slabaugh had threatened suicide. But when Greg and Angela finally connected, Greg learned it was his mother-in-law, not Bill, who was in grave condition.
"You need to get to the hospital as soon as possible," Angela said, "but I'm not sure it will be soon enough."
Erin watched her husband's expressions as he held the cell phone close to his ear. Careful not to worry his wife further, he chose his words wisely as he relayed the message from Angela, who lived across the street from the Slabaughs.
"I don't know how to tell you this, but Bill threw some kind of chemical on your mom and she's burned. She's going to the hospital."
And though he didn't elaborate, Erin sensed the severity of her mother's injuries. She dropped to the kitchen floor and curled up.
"No!" she cried. "No! No!"
______
Jeremy Bear knew it was his sister -- caller ID had confirmed that. But he had trouble making sense of the babbles between the screams.
"Mom . . . Bill . . . hurt . . . "
"Erin, slow down."
She paused to compose herself.
"Bill hurt Mom!"
"Hurt her how?"
"With acid!" she wailed. "He threw acid all over her!"
Jeremy, who lived thousands of miles away in Long Beach, Calif., told Erin that he and his wife, Carey, would make immediate arrangements to come to Akron.
Maybe it wasn't that bad, he thought after the conversation ended. Maybe they'd had a quarrel that ended in Bill throwing a bottle of drain cleaner at her or . . . something. Anything.
The notion that such violence could take place in his family was ludicrous.
They aren't the kind of folks who have enemies or keep dirty little secrets, Jeremy reasoned. They attend church and give to charity.
And no one close to Bill, including Becky's children by her previous marriage, thought he was capable of doing something like this.
______
Becky had been living with Greg and Erin since leaving her husband a couple of weeks earlier. Originally, Erin had planned to go to the house with her mother the morning of July 10, 2004. But at the last minute, she decided to remain behind and work in the yard. Now, guilt picked away at her churning stomach.
She had no way of knowing Bill had researched and ordered nitric acid, generally used to make explosives and some types of fertilizer, off the Internet. And the night before, during the dinner hour, neighbors noticed when a United Parcel Service truck delivered a small box ($51.16 including shipping) to the Slabaugh home.
Erin and Greg, who learned that Becky was going to be flown to the Akron Children's Hospital burn unit, beat the helicopter there. They listened to the whirling sound of the flying medical unit as it touched down.
Swish, swish, swish. And then silence.
Becky was rushed inside. It would be hours before her family could see her.
She was given fluids to replace what she had lost and placed in a tub where her second- and third-degree burns were cleaned.
Once she was stable, Dr. John Crow took a closer look at the stuff in the tall, plastic bottle recovered by emergency personnel.
When he removed the lid, smoke seeped out. Carefully, he dipped litmus paper in the liquid. It read pH 1, the strongest nitric acid available to the general public. The mere mist can cause severe burns and, if inhaled, can be fatal.
Friends joined family members at the hospital. They gathered close and worried that Becky might die. But the hospital staff, who were busy attending to the patient, were certain she would survive. She was a relatively young woman in terrific shape.
During the three-hour wait, Erin kept in close contact with her sister, Lauren Martin, who was on her way to the hospital from Apple Valley, Ohio. But before she arrived, Erin was permitted into Becky's hospital room.
Burned over 50 percent of her body, Becky was bandaged from head to toe.
Her right eye was covered with a white film. Doctors had warned Erin the acid might cause her mother to be blind in that eye. And her swollen lips protruded from a slit in the bandages.
"I am so shocked," Becky said, referring to the attack. "I'm just so shocked."
As she went on to explain what had happened, Erin felt increasingly weak.
"It was so long," Becky explained.
"What do you mean?" someone else in the room asked.
"He sat on top of me and sprayed me for so long. It was so long."
Erin clung to the railing of the bed to keep upright. She worried that if she were to pass out, it would be just one more thing to upset her mother. But when her legs turned limp and could no longer hold up her tiny frame, she fell to the floor.
Even in her current state, Becky's nurse training took over.
"Raise her feet above her heart!" she called, in a voice as loud as her damaged body would allow. "Somebody raise her feet above her heart!"
______
When Lauren arrived, she was briefed on her mother's condition. The effects of the acid on Becky's body were obvious, but Lauren wondered how she was doing emotionally.
"Hi, Mama," she said in an upbeat tone as she reached out to touch the mummified woman.
"Hi, honey," Becky answered. And then without hesitation, Becky added, "I guess the old guy was nuttier than we all thought, huh?"
Lauren burst into laughter. She knew that beneath all of the bandages, at least her mom's sense of humor was intact.
______
As day turned to dusk, the hospital staff encouraged Becky's friends and family to go home. The staff promised to keep a close eye on her during the night and would call if there was a problem. Though somewhat uneasy, they agreed to leave.
But around 3 a.m., a telephone call confirmed that Becky was asking for her daughter.
"Tell her I'm coming!" Erin told the nurse.
When she and Greg arrived, Becky was in a rage. During the night, someone revealed that Bill, who had sustained burns to his legs, arms and feet, was in the same unit -- in a room down the hall and around the corner.
It was bad enough that she couldn't open her eyes to escape the flashbacks.
But, now, each time Becky heard the door to her room ease open, she was convinced her husband had come to kill her.
She begged to have a police officer posted outside Bill's door, but he wasn't under arrest -- not yet. So her pleas went unanswered. Her family and nurses pledged she would not be left alone again. Not until her husband was behind bars.
And they kept their promise, right up until two days after the attack, when Stark County sheriff's deputies arrived at the hospital and arrested Bill Slabaugh for kidnapping and felonious assault.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Children, friends rush to acid victim's side; surprise at hospital brings fear, rage
