Mother of girl who died during asthma attack gets over 3 years in prison, pay fines

A mother who neglected to bring her daughter to the hospital for hours during an asthma attack has been sentenced to serve over three years(41 months) in prison.

Rachel Lynn Modrow, 35, has credit for 35 days already served. She must pay $128 from her prison wages in fines and criminal surcharges. The amount also includes a $3 law library fee.

As previously reported, Modrow and her husband Anthony were both charged with second-degree manslaughter after failing to take their 9-year-old daughter to a hospital for several hours when she experienced an asthma attack.

Court documents state that the girl had gone to a sleepover in February and her friend told her mom the girl was having an asthma attack the next morning. Along with the reported “heavy or fast breathing,” the mother noticed that the girl was using an inhaler with her grandmother’s name instead of her own.

The girl reportedly said that she was using her grandmother’s inhaler because her parents didn’t have a vehicle.

The friend’s mother then called the girl’s father, Anthony Modrow, to explain the situation. The complaint states that he sighed and handed the phone to Rachel Modrow, who asked the woman to bring their daughter back home, refusing the woman’s offer to take the girl to a doctor.

The woman later told police the girl was wheezing, breathing heavily and asking to go to a doctor when she dropped the girl back off with the Modrows, adding that Anthony made no attempt to help the girl when she got home, despite the fact that she could barely walk at that point. That was at around 7:30 a.m.

The girl was eventually brought to the hospital around 3½ hours later. She was later declared brain-dead a week later due to a loss of oxygen related to the asthma attack. Anthony Modrow later admitted that his daughter’s asthma issues had begun two days earlier and that her rescue inhaler had been empty for a month and they never refilled it, He also said the girl was wheezing, unable to breathe and crying when she got home from the sleepover but they tried home remedies like a steam bath before going to a hospital.

Multiple doctors talked with investigators and said the girl would’ve had a “much better chance to survive with earlier medical intervention,” the charging documents state. They also note that doctors stressed how important early intervention is for asthma while adding that a steam bath isn’t a recognized treatment, nor is using another person’s inhaler.

Anthony Modrow has a jury trial scheduled for Jan. 27.