L'Echelle Head - Additional Information Added

Detroit Police were called to a private residence on October 11, 2000 to investigate the report of an unresponsive 21-year-old woman shortly after 6 p.m. The young woman was L'Echelle R. Head, AKA L'Echelle Hall. She was transported to Good Samaritan Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 7:45 p.m. Preliminary reports were that she likely suffered some sort of embolism after an abortion performed at Dayton Women's Health Services.

The clinic had been caught operating without a license in 1999. It was inspected on October 27, 1999, to see if a license should be granted. Inspectors found rusty instruments, improperly-marked medications, and a failure to follow sterile technique. The clinic administrators were told they'd have to correct the problems to get a license. The clinic got the license after getting a waiver regarding follow-up care for patients.

A December, 2000 inspection found that a nurse had pre-signed blank post-operative sections on patient records -- a fact that was discovered only because the patients hadn't actually shown up for their abortions at all.

L'Echelle's obituary indicates that she left behind a daughter, her parents, and three sisters.

Sources:

• "Abortion clinic stops operations," Dayton Daily News, January 5, 2001