Eleven-year-old girl dies while her parents are praying.

Yesterday was a bad day. When I awoke and went out to drive to breakfast with a friend, I found that two of the tires on my car were flat. Later in the day, I went to a restaurant where service has deteriorated much over the last few months, and where the service yesterday was so terrible that I complained to the manager. We got our meals gratis. Then, I went to Office Max to buy a new filing cabinet and found that despite having been told (previously, when I called to ask) that I could get free delivery on any item over $50, that that would not be the case. Free delivery is only if I ordered from online. So, I had to load it  up and lug it home. See what I mean about a bad day?

Well, today is not much better.

I read a piece in the Virginian-Pilot about a family who didn’t seek medical care for their seriously ill eleven-year-old daughter because they didn’t believe in medical treatment. They believed that God alone has the ability to heal the sick.

Kara Neumann, a beautiful eleven-year-old, died from untreated diabetic ketoacidosis resulting form undiagnosed and untreated juvenile diabetes. This condition occurs when the body fails to produce insulin, which then leads to severe dehdration and impairment of muscle, lung, and heart function. So, she died. Everything stopped working, and she died.

Kara had not seen a doctor since she was three, and, according to a police report, she no longer had the strength to eat or drink or even to speak on the day before she died. She reportedly could not move her mouth and just made moaning noises and moved her eyes back and forth.

Her parents, Dale and Leilana Neumann, are said to be followers of an online faith outrach called Unleavened Bread Ministries, which calls for healing by faith alone and talks about the end of the world. I visited the Unleavened Bread Ministries web site and even found one of their published writings that talks about Christians (who are not a part of their ministry) having a microchip in their foreheads. I kid you not. The Neumanns reportedly believe that if they had taken Kara to a doctor for treatment they would be cut off from God.

Now, I’m sorry if I offend anyone … but these people are nuts! Not the psychiatric diagnosis, medication-will-help kind, but weak-willed, callous, no common sense kind of nuts. And yes, I know it’s not politicaly correct to call someone nuts, but that is not a slam on anyone other than the Neumanns. As I said, they are weak-willed, callous, and have no common sense, and I can think of no other word that is so universally known to describe this type of person, to describe them. Again, I apologize.

I’m an insulin-dependent diabetic. Every day I have to use a needle to inject insulin into my abdomen. My life depends on doing so. I see doctors. And I’m not cut off from God. God has blessed me with many things, one of which was the discovery that I have diabetes and led me to a doctor to properly treat me.

Leilane Neumann and Dale Neumann are are chrged of reckless endangerment. If convicted, each faces up to 25 years in prison. I hope they use that time (if convicted) to get a grip on their lives and beliefs and not follow another pseudo-religious group like the Unleavend Bread Ministries. That group has caused enough damage. 

To watch a lively and vivacious young girl die before their eyes when medical care would have been easily obtainable is wrong, wrong, wrong. Just plain wrong.