This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
St. George • Trial is set to begin for a Cedar City midwife charged with manslaughter in the 2012 death of a premature baby.
The Spectrum reports that opening statements in Vickie Dawn Sorensen's 5th District Court trial are scheduled for Wednesday. The 56-year-old woman is charged with felony manslaughter and two misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment.
Sorensen is accused of refusing to take a woman pregnant with premature twins to a hospital when she began to go into labor two months early in December 2012.
Court documents say Sorensen, a lay midwife, instead had the woman deliver in her Cedar City birth center without proper equipment or up-to-date CPR skills.
One of the twins born at Sorensen's birth center died. The mother was taken to a hospital, where the second baby was born.