The Linares case is one of the memorable moral dramas played out in a pediatric intensive care unit and in the press in a decade of momentous moral cases concerning the care of children. It was a vivid tragedy that posed intense conflict. Its characters were sharply drawn, and it culminated in a final, dramatic scene.
High drama tends toward heroes who are admired for their courage and distinguished performance, and villains who are embodiments of evil reviled for their wickedness. To make it simple for the audience, the good often wear white and the bad wear black. Not so in this story. Two nurses who took care of Samuel Linares, Karen Stratton and Laura Stark, wrote, ‘‘The media sensationalized Rudy Linares as a hero while Rush PICU staff members were portrayed as the villains. Who is right?”’
Nurses played a central role in the Linares case. Accounts of the drama in newspapers, television stories, and articles across the country contained opening paragraphs giving the basic facts: Rudy Linares, a 23-year-old laborer, held nurses at gunpoint just after midnight on April 26, 1989, while he disconnected his 16-month-old unconscious son, Samuel, from a respirator at Rush Presbyterian St. Luke's Hospital in Chicago and held him in his arms until he died.