BY EARNEST WINSTON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
ALEXANDRIA -- One of eight-day-old Alexandria quadruplets has died of heart complications.
Justin M. McGrath died Tuesdayfrom complications resulting from Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, Justin's father, Dennis McGrath, said doctors told his family. The condition is a rare congenital heart defect.
Justin, who weighed 3 pounds and 4 ounces, died at Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati.
"For most of Monday evening, we got the chance to hold him," said Mr. McGrath. "Justin was able to die in his mom's arms."
The surviving siblings are two boys and a girl. The quadruplets were born eight weeks premature. "Everybody else is healthy," Mr. McGrath said.
Doctors decided that Justin shouldn't have heart surgery, tentatively scheduled for Monday, because they found that his brain was bleeding. Because the bleeding progressed, doctors said surgery could have caused bleeding to worsen, Mr. McGrath said.
Doctors diagnosed Justin's heart condition a month before the quadruplets were born. "We had some time to prepare for it," he said.
Justin is survived by his father and mother, Ronda Broxterman McGrath; four brothers, William Weil and Stephen Weil, both of Cincinnati, and Shawn McGrath and Joseph McGrath, both of Alexandria; two sisters, Patricia Weil of Cincinnati and Alisha McGrath of Alexandria; paternal grandmother, Mary Ann McGrath of Cold Spring; maternal grandfather, Ralph Broxterman of Clermont County; maternal grandmother, Barb Bollman of Lawrenceburg; and several aunts, uncles and cousins.
There is no visitation. Graveside service is 1 p.m. Friday at St. Stephen Cemetery in Fort Thomas.
Memorials can be made to the American Heart Association, 2936 Vernon Place, Cincinnati 45219, or Childrens Hospital, 3333 Burnet Ave., Cincinnati, 45229. Muehlenkamp-Erschell Funeral Home in Newport is in charge of arrangements.
