Scarred Girl Asked to Leave KFC

Cranky said:

That part *is* problematic, but to be honest? I really don't feel too bad that she's getting help. I just wish that other kids didn't need the help, too.

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I hear you, but I don't feel that great about her getting help. She's getting medical bills paid for, but it's for services she already got. It's not as if she would have been denied medical treatment otherwise. The money isn't saving her life. It's saving her parents from debt. I know a lot of people who have medical debt because of themselves, or their kids. I know I do. We deal with it.

Celia Cyanide said:

I hear you, but I don't feel that great about her getting help. She's getting medical bills paid for, but it's for services she already got. It's not as if she would have been denied medical treatment otherwise. The money isn't saving her life. It's saving her parents from debt. I know a lot of people who have medical debt because of themselves, or their kids. I know I do. We deal with it.

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Yup. And that's why people get so mad about being tricked, I think. I don't know that she's done with all the treatment that she needs, though.

Still, it makes me squirm that she got helped because Grandma was a manipulative, lying douchnozzle. So I hear you on that, too.

robjvargas said:

That's the "sort of" in what I said. It's not good that the grandmother appears to have concocted this.

By the way, the story seems to be getting more odd.



Now my cynicism is kicking into high gear.

The girl's medical needs are real. But if she's eating through a feeding tube, then even mashed potatoes isn't an option, is it? I thought I'd seen a feeding tube mentioned before, and my link above says so as well.

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The feeding tube thing would depend. Some have them because they can't, for whatever reason, either consume food regularly or absorb food/nutrients well or correctly if consumed regularly, and for those people, no, regular food isn't likely involved.

For others, it's supportive, because, for various reasons, they're not reliably getting enough nutrients. For those people, what the grandmother said may make sense.

I recall a story of a woman who went years saying she had cancer and took donations for medical bills. She didn't have cancer, and she was arrested and charged.

I'm wondering if this will happen to Granny. The need was real, but she lied to manipulate another entity to pay. It seems a prosecutor would be looking into this case. Perhaps even the TV station could sue for being lied to and used as part of the hoax, but I've never heard of a news outfit suing a source.

benbradley said:

I recall a story of a woman who went years saying she had cancer and took donations for medical bills. She didn't have cancer, and she was arrested and charged.

I'm wondering if this will happen to Granny. The need was real, but she lied to manipulate another entity to pay. It seems a prosecutor would be looking into this case. Perhaps even the TV station could sue for being lied to and used as part of the hoax, but I've never heard of a news outfit suing a source.

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I could see her being prosecuted because she is receiving donations based upon a lie. I doubt the TV station could sue, because the onus was on them to actually investigate her claims before reporting it.

Hopefully someone will take an interest in how well someone willing to apparently fabricate the whole thing for attention is doing as a guardian of a child.

the child's aunt maintains it was not a hoax:

https://www.facebook.com/victoriasvictories/posts/1454642221451319

I promise its not a hoax, I never thought any of this would blow up the way it has. The article circling the web calling this a hoax is untrue. The article it self say the investigation is not complete. It is not over until KFC releases a statement. The media outlet running this story is not connected with KFC. The family has not asked for anything, a attorney is handling all the media publicity for the family pro bono. Please do not believe untrue media. I have personally watched this family go without to provide for Victoria. They have not and would not do anything to hurt Victoria in any way.

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kaitie said:

I'd like to say that this is a good reason for journalists to actually put some time into researching a story before they go public with it. How often do we see stories in the news these days that are pretty quickly debunked?

We have this need for instantaneous news, and there is such a rush to get the information out before anyone else, and we've lost all journalistic integrity in the process.

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Also, while I don't really mind objective reports of incidents like these, like you would typically expect from a professional news publication/site, I think there's been a rise of less formal, more blog-like sites that tend to post articles about stories like these that are much more subjective and emotional. There's nothing wrong with op/ed pieces, but I've seen a rise in articles that are essentially the writer expressing outrage over a story that isn't fully-developed. It's overly reactionary. I've grown tired of one site I would read occasionally because the writers have a habit of writing stories that feel like poorly-researched, sensationalized click-bait. Sometimes there are even comments in the comment section from people mentioning articles from other news sources that give more details about the story (which refute the version the site's writer is peddling). It's pretty bad when readers have to do the fact-checking, especially if it only take a few minutes of googling.

Celia Cyanide said:

The little girl gets the money because of what her grandmother did. There are plenty of kids who could use money for their medical bills. It doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy that this one is getting help and not them because they all have decent, honest parents.

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Yeah, I have mixed feelings. I think it's good that the girl's medical needs are cared for. But I hope she doesn't feel guilty in the future when she better understands how her family got the money and the controversy that was involved. It's not her fault and she shouldn't have to feel guilty, but I think I would if I were in her shoes.

Also, I have mixed emotions about some of this viral stories where people end up donating many thousands of dollars. I mean, I think it's wonderful that people are willing to be so selfless. I think it's a good thing to be willing to give to someone in need, even if the story isn't substantiated.

But I also think it's a shame that people focus so much on a small number of individuals, and keep giving to them even after they have many thousands of dollars raised. If someone is moved by Victoria's story, I bet they could find many other children with serious injuries who don't have GoFundMe accounts and don't have people lining up to help them. I can understand the need for larger fundraising campaigns--many people giving ten or twenty dollars is going to make a bigger impact to the person receiving donations. But I also feel like if someone can afford to give a few dollars to a GoFundMe account on the spur of the moment, they could also afford smaller, random acts of kindness, and it would be nice if more people thought of that. And shoot, I'm sure a lot of people could find local fundraising efforts for sick children, too, if they want to contribute to a larger campaign. A few restaurants in my area have, at various times, welcome donations or hosted benefits for individual families with seriously ill children.

robjvargas said:

The granny here never actually asked for anything. Not until that GoFundMe site was created, and she didn't create it.

I'm disliking her more with each day, but I'm not sure she did anything illegal. Immoral, I'd say yes.

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Yeah, even if this is all a hoax, that doesn't mean it's fraud unless the grandmother solicited donations.

I have personally watched this family go without to provide for Victoria.

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Haskins, you unfeeling bastard, it's no small thing to sacrifice your dream of living on a pit bull ranch.

Homeowner's insurance pays for liability, which is why dog ownership can increase the price of your premium. Of course, renters are not required to carry renters insurance, so you get into the territory of some dog owners not having the resources to pay. Sometimes landlords are held responsible, but this gets into that whole sticky deep pockets territory (and this is one reason why some landlords don't allow dogs or have size restrictions--their own insurance may require it).

Before everyone who owns a dog panics, though, it's important to remember that severe dog bites of this nature are actually pretty rare (though they hit on one of our most primordeal fears as humans--being attacked by a large predator, and thus garner a lot more media attention than more common accidents that cost people their lives and limbs), and in spite of the media often reporting "pit bulls," there is in fact no such breed as a "pit bull," and a variety of dog breeds and mixes are often labeled as such. Mislabeling of dogs by the media law enforcement aside, bites from the most popular breeds and mixes will tend to be overrepresented at the ER. I don't know about other parts of the country, but right now, dogs of breeds and mixes that your average joe would (mis)identify as a "pit bull" are extremely popular here in California for whatever reason.

To put things in perspective, however, a child is statistically more likely to be killed or take a trip to the ER doing youth sports as they are to need medical attention, let alone die in a dog attack, and far more people are killed in car and bike accidents or as pedestrians each year in the US. Not that dog owners shouldn't train, control, and socialize their dogs, or that they shouldn't be fully responsible when their pet gets loose and injures someone.

This is a nice article about so-called pit bulls.

This is a good little book that puts dog bite statistics in perspective.

Two investigations have now concluded that the incident in question never happened.

http://www.kltv.com/story/25855012/questions-raised-about-kfc-story

One more update:

Three doctors have volunteered their time and effort to take care of Victoria.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/...-attacked-by-dogs-after-kfc-hoax-accusations/