Transcript
A (0:00)
This is Sarah Koenig here to tell you we've got a new show. It's called the Preventionist and it's about doctors, mostly about this one doctor whose job was to prevent child abuse, to identify abuse and reduce harm to children. But time after time, her diagnoses and the prevention she recommended rather than curing a problem, seem to be causing fresh damage. Diane Neary is the reporter on this one. She's based in Pennsylvania and she got a tip about parents complaining in the Lehigh Valley. So she went to check it and it was nuts what was happening in the hospital there. In three episodes, Diane tells the story of this one doctor's controversial career and how it all came to a head in the Lehigh Valley. In the final episode, Diane's reporting gets at something rare. The real time experience of a mother trying to reconstruct her family of five children after years of court ordered separation. It's affecting in a way I'd never heard before. The show's coming out October 30th for New York Times subscribers. All episodes are out now. Just search the Preventionist on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can become a New York Times subscriber and support our journalism. Plus get access to exclusive content like this series before anyone else by visiting nytimes.com subscription audio okay, I hope you'll listen. Here's the trailer.
B (1:25)
It's August 2023, a county government meeting in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley. A young woman, early 20s, steps up to the mic to speak. She's got a story to tell. She has five minutes.
C (1:38)
My two month old son was happily drinking milk from his bottle when he quickly started choking, turned blue and went limp. My boyfriend transported our son to the changing table. As I grabbed an anti choking device and my boyfriend began assembling it, I never ran so fast up the stairs screaming at the top of my lungs for help. My father rushed downstairs and immediately started doing chest compressions as I dialed911. Two pumps of the device and my son was conscious, gasping for air and coughing up milk.
B (2:04)
It worked. Thank God they thought. The whole family, mother, father, grandparents, they all went to the ER to make sure the baby was okay.
C (2:14)
We saved his life that night. But upon arriving at Lehigh Valley Hospital, the diagnosis quickly became something so different, something nobody could have ever prepared me for.
B (2:24)
It turned out one of the doctors had a theory.
C (2:27)
She stated to my father and mother in law that we are young first time parents who got frustrated with our baby and violently shook him to make him stop crying and a confession would only make things easier for us.