Shaken baby survivor: 'It's not OK to beat kids'

Bill Folker was born perfectly healthy.

Six weeks later, paramedics found him lifeless, his skull, arms and legs broken from repeated abuse by his parents.

He was resuscitated, but the baby boy who came back was brain damaged and physically disabled.

Today, the 34-year-old Colorado Springs man is not bitter or angry. “I guess it comes natural to me to forgive a lot of people,” he said. He is happy and part of a close-knit adoptive family. He is a church usher with a penchant for western wear and country music.

Still, Folker wants people to understand the consequences of bad decisions. His life is a crystal ball for some of the two dozen seriously abused children treated this year at Memorial Hospital for Children.

“There are always choices to make,” he said. “Get it through your head that it’s not OK to beat kids, or females, or anybody.”

Bill and his family don’t consider him a victim. “Bill is just an amazing miracle,” says his adoptive mother, Danette Dixon. When she took him in as a foster parent when he was 3 months old, she was told he would never walk or talk and would likely be a vegetable.

It took years, but he eventually proved doctors wrong. At 4, he talked. At 8, he walked. He graduated from high school and has found steady work ever since. At times he’s worked for less money than he would have otherwise collected from Social Security, just for the satisfaction of earning his own money.

He travels — last month he visited a brother in Hawaii — and hopes to someday find a girlfriend. He rides horses and has participated in a Civil War re-enactment.

Not that this has all come easy. Folker says matter-of-factly that people have taken advantage of him and laughed at him. And despite his best efforts, he’s never been able to ride a bike, play golf, surf, or ride in a rodeo like he’s dreamed of.

He urges young couples to consider whether they want to start a family or are ready for the challenges.

When it comes to children, he said, there are two choices: Right and wrong. “What you do with your kid (now) will be reflected later in their lives.”

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