
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 11, 1992                   TAG: 9203110078
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BIG ISSAC, W.VA.                                LENGTH: Medium

SURGEONS AMPUTATE HIGHER ON FROSTBITTEN LEGS OF BOY

An 11-year-old boy who lived with his father in an unheated bus for a month had his lower legs amputated Tuesday. The boy had his frostbitten feet amputated last week.

His father, who has been charged with felony child neglect, said he didn't seek help because he was afraid his son would be taken from him.

"I didn't have anything," Douglas K. Roupe said. "I was just afraid."

He said he had no idea his son's feet were frozen during the month they took shelter in the rusting bus, converted to a hunter's cabin in a remote hollow. Temperatures in the area hit 5 degrees during the first week of February.

"We both went up there to keep warm," Roupe said Monday. "He seemed to be doing OK. It was a shock to me when I found out his feet were frostbitten."

Roupe, 44, was charged last week after doctors amputated the feet of his son, Douglas E. Roupe. The elder Roupe was freed on $10,000 bail posted by a former employer and a friend.

On Tuesday, doctors at West Virginia University Children's Hospital removed the boy's legs below the knee to prepare him for prostheses, said William Case, a spokesman for WVU hospitals.

"He's in serious condition and conscious and alert," Case said.

State police found the pair weak and complaining of hunger on March 4 in the bus near Big Issac, a northern West Virginia town about 160 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. The bus had been left at the end of a nearly impassable road. Roupe said he took custody of the boy eight years ago when he and his wife divorced.

Ann Garcelon, spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Human Services, said Roupe received food stamps and other aid until he left Doddridge County last June and left no forwarding address.

Roupe said he worked for a St. Louis-based carnival until last fall, when a fire shortened the carnival's season and destroyed his belongings.

He said he didn't contact the welfare office upon his return to West Virginia for fear of losing his son.

"I'm not guilty of what they charged me with," Roupe said. "I tried to find work. There wasn't anything out there."

by CNB