Keating, O’Gara, Nedved & Peter

Olivia Manes, seated between her parents, Tina and David Manes, and pictured with older sister Suzanne, age 20, and brother Jesse, age 14, at Christmas time.

From the Lincoln Journal Star:

Parents sue state to get answers in daughter’s death
By DEENA WINTER
Lincoln Journal Star
Friday, Feb 13, 2009

At first, she was known only as Client 1.

An 18-year-old Beatrice State Developmental Center client had died.

Three hours after going into a seizure, she was dead.

She hadn’t had a seizure since 1999, when she began taking Klonopin to control them.

Her parents didn’t know it, but three days earlier, Beatrice staff had stopped giving her the medication, triggering what their attorney calls “a cascading series of medical errors.”

At about 3 a.m. on Jan. 16, her parents were awakened by the Pawnee County sheriff.

Client 1, as she was referred to in a state investigation, was dead.

But she had a name: Olivia Manes.

On Thursday, Tina and David Manes filed a $1.75 million claim against the state for wrongful death and the “pre-death terror, pain and suffering” of their daughter Olivia. They alleged at least 10 errors in her care.

A spokeswoman for the state declined to comment on the filing.

Tina and David learned Olivia had Dandy-Walker Syndrome when she was 2 months old. She was blind and mentally retarded. She never walked. She had 15 to 20 seizures per day.

They kept her home until she was 6 and it became clear they could no longer care for her. She had difficulty swallowing. Feeding her took a couple of hours. She wasn’t getting enough fluids.

Immediately, they knew where they wanted her to live.

David’s older brother, Mark, had Down Syndrome and lived at the Beatrice center.

“I grew up out there,” said David, a Beatrice native.

Tina said she felt guilty because she had “selfishly” kept Olivia at home longer than perhaps she should have. When she went to Beatrice, she was so small and possibly malnourished they could carry her like a toddler.

In Beatrice, she learned to eat, drink and swallow properly. She came to love eating.

She thrived, particularly after she began taking one tablet of seizure medicine daily. It was her lifeline.

She loved music especially Shania Twain and Christmas songs. She loved feeling the breeze on her face when someone pushed her wheelchair outside.

The Maneses and their son and another daughter live 39 miles away from Beatrice, in Steinauer. They visited Olivia at least weekly.

When she heard their voices, her mother said, she would light up and reach her hands out for a bear hug that could give you whiplash.

She loved to nestle her cheek next to yours, Tina said, crying at the memory.

They felt like she was meant to spread joy at Beatrice.

When they got the call telling them she’d died, they couldn’t understand how their girl, who hadn’t had a seizure since 1999, could be gone.

Two weeks after burying their daughter, the Maneses learned some of the heartbreaking details of Olivia’s death while watching the evening news.