Delivery suite horror story: Doctors 'killed baby during birth and tried to cover it up with a Caesarean'

A Missouri couple have filed a lawsuit against a pair of obstetricians, accusing them of decapitating their baby during his 2011 delivery and then trying to hide it by shoving the child’s body and severed head back into the birth canal.

In a court complaint that reads like the script of a horror film, Arteisha Betts and Travis Ammonette, of Florissant, described how doctors Gilbert Webb and Susan Moore had allegedly coerced them into a vaginal delivery against their wishes, and then severed their son's head.

The 10-complaint lawsuit cites Midwest Maternal & Fetal Medicine Services, LLC, Signature Medical Group Inc and the two doctors. However, the suit does not list St John’s Mercy Medical Center in St. Louis, where the bungled delivery too place in March 2001, as a defendant.

Outraged parents: Arteisha Betts and Travis Ammonette are suing two obstetricians for allegedly decapitating their son during his 2011 delivery and then trying to cover it up.

Touching tribute: Ammonette got a tattoo of little Kaden's hand prints on his chest last April honoring his deceased son.

According to the court filing, Betts and Ammonette were told by Dr Moore during a February 2011 appointment that the baby will have to be delivered via C-section rather than vaginally because the child had an abnormally large abdomen, Patch Florissant reported.

But when the expectant mother prematurely went into labor on March 22 only 28 weeks and five days into her term, the complaint indicates that Dr Webb 'would not agree' to the Cesarean and 'would only deliver her baby by way of attempted trial of vaginal delivery.'  

The couple claim that the obstetrician also refused to let them go to a different hospital for a Cesarian.

‘Believing that she had no other choice than to agree to a trial of vaginal delivery, plaintiff Arteisha Betts consented to a trial of vaginal delivery under duress and protest,’ according to the complaint.

The infant's head was delivered in the first stage of the birthing process, but in the second stage which got under way at around 10.30pm, the lawsuit claims that his large abdomen became lodged in the birth canal.

According to the complaint, Dr Webb applied traction to the child's head in an attempt to dislodge his body, at which point the infant was decapitated. 

Citing the complaint, the Courthouse News Services reported that blood shot out from the baby’s arteries and veins, spilling onto the floor in full view of the mother and Ammonette, who was sitting only two to four feet away from the birthing bed.

The lawsuit states that Webb then 'pushed decedent's head and body back into plaintiff Arteisha Betts' birth canal' and called for an emergency C-section.

The doctor started cutting into the woman's abdomen before the anesthesia fully set in, causing her great pain and suffering in the process, the suit says.

During the procedure,  the doctor ‘surgically and completely removed’ the child's head from his neck and torso.

Sued: Dr. Gilbert Webb is a defendant in a complaint accusing him of forcing Arteisha Betts into undergoing a vaginal delivery against her wishes

Site: The bungled delivery took place March 2011 at St. John's Mercy Medical Center in St. Louis, but the hospital has not been listed as a defendant in the lawsuit

Before handing the little boy named Kaden Travis to his parents, Webb had allegedly 'intentionally concealed' his neck wounds, although the complaint does not specify how it was done.

The Daily Mail was unable to reach the couple's attorney, Christopher Wright of the firm Millikan Wright in St Louis, on Thursday. Calls to the two medical centers cited in the lawsuit also went unanswered. 

The suit seeks unspecified damages to cover pregnancy costs, funeral expenses as well as personal injury and wrongful death.