A mother is asking for temporary custody of her son because the toddler's father is a firefighter/EMT — she worries the baby could contract the virus.
Until last week, Tabatha Sams and Stephen Thilmony were splitting the time with their son, 21-month-old Dawson James Thilmony — three days a week with one parent, four days with the other.
But as fears over the novel coronavirus escalated, the Orange County mother said she asked Thilmony to let the toddler stay with her for now because he works on the front lines of the pandemic as a first responder and is at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19.
But Thilmony, who is a firefighter/EMT with Osceola County Fire Rescue, told Sams he and his fiancée, a nurse at a hospital emergency room, were taking the proper precautions to protect themselves and Dawson from the
virus.
Sams has filed an emergency motion for temporary custody of the child until Florida ends its state of emergency over the coronavirus. Circuit Judge Vincent Chiu declined to take action Wednesday but scheduled a virtual hearing on the motion next Tuesday, court records show.
“I’m not doing this to be malicious,” Sams said in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel. “I don’t want to take away time with his son. I just want Dawson to be as safe as possible. I don’t want to take any chances.”
Across the nation, child custody battles and co-parenting arrangements have been challenged by the social distancing and quarantine measures related to the pandemic.
After courthouse access became limited, OrangeOsceola Chief Judge Donald Myers Jr. prohibited
parents from “unreasonably” restricting access of the children to their other parent and ordered them to continue time-sharing agreements unless the government bans them from moving around the community freely.
“Parents are strongly cautioned that unreasonable, hurtful, or destructive behavior may be severely and harshly sanctioned by the court, and the non-offending parent may be awarded significant make up time, including summer and consecutive major holidays,” Myers wrote in a March 27 order. “Such actions may also impact the Court’s long term decision for timesharing.”
Thilmony’s attorney, Debra Botwin, did not want to comment. In a March 31 response, Botwin argued Sams’ motion was an “inappropriate attempt to deny the Father timesharing with the minor child” and said it came after Thilmony raised concerns about a “bad diaper rash” Dawson had after
being in his mother’s care.
“The Father and his [fiancée] are both in first responder positions, are acutely aware of the protocols and have continued [a] strict adherence to those, as have their departments,” Botwin wrote. “The Father should not be denied contact by the Mother … due to his position as a firefighter.”
Sams denied filing the motion in response to Thilmony’s health-care concerns.
Her attorney, Conti Moore Smith, said her client is not trying to punish Thilmony or his fiancée and appreciates their sacrifice to provide health care to the community during the pandemic.
“No one is trying to punish anybody for taking that risk, but how do you balance that with the safety of the child and allow the other parent to have time sharing?” Moore Smith asked. “… The part that is frustrating is that first responders don’t have necessarily what they need to
protect themselves while trying to respond to this pandemic and [Thilmony] is not at fault for this. I wish we could make sure those who were out on the front lines would have gear to protect them better.”
Sams, who was laid off from her job as a server at a restaurant because of the coronavirus, said she is also worried about her child potentially exposing her 74-year-old grandmother during visits. Thilmony is supposed to pick up Dawson on Saturday, but Sams said she plans to keep her child and offer the father increased communication over the phone until the state of emergency is over.
“I don’t want to roll the dice with that,” she said. ” … When it’s all over, he can have make-up time. I just don’t think it’s smart for him to have physical contact with Dawson and risk exposing him to it.”