HAMMOND | More than 10 years after the death of her 13-month-old son, Alice Guerrero can't speak of the ordeal without breaking down.

The youngest of three children at the time, the toddler died June 7, 2000, less than two days following routine surgery to correct an undescended testicle, a common condition afflicting baby boys.

"We didn't want to let it go," Guerrero said, recalling the morning she walked in to find the child, named Israel, unresponsive.

Alice, 39, and the baby's father, Rogelio Guerrero, 37, said they immediately believed something had gone wrong with the surgery.

"How could a 13-month-old boy, healthy, running around being so happy and loved, just die like that?" Alice Guerrero said.

"For two years we struggled," she said of the search for attorneys to take the case.

"We needed somebody to tell us what happened to him," she said. "Why? Why did he die like that? He couldn't just die like that."

The Hammond couple said they were thwarted by authorities who denied photos of the child's condition existed -- photos the attorneys insisted the couple obtain on their own.

"We knew there were pictures," she said.

The first time the couple saw the child with his bandages removed was just prior to the photos being taken by the Lake County coroner's office, Guerrero said.

The fourth law firm the couple contacted also asked for the photos, which authorities again denied.

Merrillville attorney Timothy Schafer said that was when he hit the roof.

Schafer not only pursued authorities for photos and results of the initial coroner's autopsy but also moved to exhume Israel's body 2 1/2 years after the child's death.

"Israel should have been getting ready for Halloween, but instead he is in a grave in Elmwood Cemetery," Schafer said he later told a jury.

Schafer said the coroner's autopsy had determined the child died from vascular collapse but had left the cause undetermined.

However, a second autopsy performed by Dr. James Bryant, a private pathologist based in Chicago, found blood flow to the child's testicle had been compromised, most likely by a misplaced suture, leading to sepsis and vascular collapse.

A second opinion by a pediatric urologist supported the pathologist's findings.

In a deposition taken in January, urologist David Diamond, of Children's Hospital Boston, stated the child's death was related to complications from the surgery.

"It would be inconceivable to me that a healthy 13-month-old who has had surgery 36 hours before they die, dies of a totally unrelated cause, without being hit by a bus," Diamond testified.

On Oct. 6, after deliberating 3 1/2 hours, a Lake Superior Court jury awarded Alice Guerrero, in whose name the suit was filed, $1.165 million in damages. The state's cap under the Medical Malpractice Act is $1.25 million.

The Munster urologist the couple sued, Dr. Hassan Alsheik, said last week the case is under appeal, though court records last week did not confirm a filing.

"I'm not giving up," Alsheik said. "I don't believe I have done anything wrong."

Alice Guerrero, meanwhile, expresses little relief or peace of mind.

"I still can't see him or hold him," she said of her lost child. "It's never going to be a big relief because he's not here. I don't have him."

"He was healthy. There was nothing wrong with him," Rogelio Guerrero said. "No matter the outcome, we wanted to know what happened."

"They need to listen if (mothers) are calling for help," Alice Guerrero said. "I trusted that doctor. They say you should call your physician. I did."

She urged other parents "to push the issue and find out what happened. Don't just let it go."

"I don't want this to happen to anyone else," she said.