: } Dr. Koop Tells of Twin’s Tragic Death—Page 48

Saxe Che Evening Bulletin

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1976 pi ELEPEEN CENTS

 

 
Dr. Koop Explains How Alta Choked

By HENRY R. DARLING
Of The Bulletin Staff

Dr. C. Everett Koop pointed to the
second button down from the top on
his shirt and said:

“It was stuck just about here.”

He was pointing to the relative loca-
tion in his own body of the bean that
caught in the throat of Altagracia
Rodriguez and killed her.

“It was stuck so tightly and so far
down that no slap on the back, no
Heimlich maneuver, nothing could
have saved her. Even if it had hap-
pened in the operating room we
couldn’t have saved her. Her mother
estiraates she was dead in 90 sec-
onds.”’

Alta Rodriguez, the 3 year-c!d for-
mer Siamese twin sister of Clara,
choked to death last Friday in the
yard of her home in Las Auyamas, a
country village high in the mountains
of the Dominican Repub yc

Clara and Alta were separated in an
historic operation at Philadelphia's
Children’s Hospital on Sept. 1s, 1974,
by a team of surgeons working with
Dr. Koop.

 

Dr. C. Everett Koop

Now they have been separated
again, by a common green bean, an
‘“habituala’ bean, not much bigger
than a kidney bean, Dr. Koop said,
rat Aila apparently pul in her mouth
and swallowed while sneezing or
laughing.

In a press conference at the hospital
yesterday, Dr. Koop said he left for
the Dominican Republic last Sunday
as soon as he learned of the tragedy.

He said he was shocked, not only by
Alta’s death, but also by the attitude
of the newspapers in Santo Domingo,
capital of the Dominican Republic.

“They are blaming the twins’
mother, Mrs. Farida Rodriguez, for
Alta's death,’ he said.

“They say she was at fault for tak-
ing the children to Las Auyamas
where there is no medical care, that
she wasn’t watching them carefully
enough and that because they have ar-
tificial organs, they needed special
care.

“Well, it was ry feelirpg that they
would be better off in the country at-
mosphere of Las Aryamas instead of
the city.

There has been some thought that
Alta had choked on a coffee bean The
yard where she w’s pla ‘ing next [9
the Rodriguez home and store is
paved with cencrete ta form a drying
area for coffee beans.

But Dr. Koop said the drying seascn

was over and the object that stuck in
Alta’s throat was definitely a green
bean of the type the twins’ father, Sal-
vador, sells in the grocery. He de-
ccribed the tragedy as ‘‘the most
{ eakish accident I have ever seen.”

[ r Koop, who was the twins’ godfa-
ther satd the funeral was held over
anil his arrival Sunday. The funeral
y~acession began from the Rodriguez’
new home in San Jose de Ocoa, a
la-ger tuwn about 14 miles from Las
A ‘aras. The home was built for the
family by the Dominican Republic
geverr nent after the birth of the
twins

As the procession passed through
the town, people kept joining it in ac-
cu rdance with Dominican tradition,”
the physician said. ‘‘By the time we
get to the church, we had picked up”
1, 0 people.”’ - ”

The Rev. Louis Quinn, rector of the
San Jose church, met the procession
at he toor and helped carry the cas-

st to tre front of the church. Dr.
vo whe has a degree from the
Eastern Baptist College, delivered the
wserm 7