Premature Newborns in Va. Found With Broken Bones 

The thriller started in the summertime of 2023, when caregivers at a suburban Richmond hospital neonatal intensive care unit observed a number of untimely new child infants within the ward had been discovered to have uncommon, inexplicable accidents: bone fractures. One of many infants’ grandmothers, a former NICU nurse, alerted authorities, suspecting her younger grandchild had been abused. 

Henrico Youngsters’s Hospital officers, nonetheless, couldn’t pinpoint what or who had damage the kids. An preliminary investigation went nowhere, however out of an abundance of warning, the hospital stopped admitting infants into its NICU ward. 

Final week, nonetheless, after practically a yr of investigation — and never lengthy after extra circumstances of infants with fractures turned up in late 2024 — police arrested Erin Elizabeth Ann Strotman, 26, charging her with felony baby abuse for injuring the kids. 

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Henrico County police mentioned they’ve reopened the entire hospital’s injured-baby circumstances from 2023 and 2024. Authorities are sifting by tons of of hours of surveillance video to fill in particulars of what occurred, in response to the discharge; a minimum of seven infants have been damage, and a minimum of one baby is Black. 

Sample Emerged in 2023

In November, the March of Dimes, a nationwide charity devoted to the well being of moms and infants, launched knowledge exhibiting Black infants are about 1.5 occasions extra more likely to be born prematurely than white infants — and are practically twice as more likely to die earlier than their first birthday. The March of Dimes additionally gave the U.S. a failing grade, D+, based mostly on the variety of infants born earlier than time period final yr. 

Whereas police haven’t launched proof of racial bias within the case, an City Institute survey discovered that Black youngsters and their mother and father are extra doubtless than others to face unfair therapy in medical settings. Round 1 in 5 Black mother and father reported experiencing biased therapy whereas in search of well being care over the previous yr — 10% greater than mother and father who’re white, Hispanic/Latinx, or different races. 

The Washington Submit experiences that the households of the injured youngsters attended Strotman’s arraignment listening to in metro Richmond final week. 

The case unfolded in 2023 when Dominique Hackey, the daddy of dual boys who had been born at 28 weeks, spent practically three months within the NICU as his youngsters fought for his or her lives. He instructed The Submit that — after the heartache of two miscarriages and the untimely delivery of new child twin sons — the exhausted couple felt helpless as one twin grew stronger however the different continued to battle. 

In September 2023, nonetheless, as each twins improved, a nurse instructed them that Noah, the stronger of the 2 infants, had a fractured leg and nobody knew precisely why, in response to The Submit. Hackey referred to as his mom, the previous NICU nurse; she rapidly reported the incident to Henrico County baby protecting providers, triggering a hospital investigation. 

However the hospital closed that probe not lengthy afterward, Hackey instructed The Submit, as a result of they believed the damage could have come from a very tough injection. Hackey instructed the paper that Henrico police, suspecting abuse, regarded into the matter in late 2023 however investigators couldn’t pinpoint a suspect and the case was closed once more final January. 

Case Reopened in 2024

A spokesperson for HCA Virginia instructed NBC Information that Strotman is a former worker of Henrico Docs’ Hospital, although the spokesperson didn’t specify Strotman’s position. Native information experiences say she was fired across the time of her arrest.

The case was reopened in 2024, nonetheless, when the county baby protecting providers division gave him “gut-wrenching” information: Hackey’s toddler son, and probably six different newborns within the hospital’s NICU, had been abused. That probe recognized Strotman as a suspect and she or he was arrested in December.

“In late November/December, we found that three infants in our Henrico Docs’ Hospital NICU had unexplainable fractures, much like an incident involving 4 infants in the summertime of 2023,” the hospital mentioned in an announcement posted on their web site on Dec. 24. “We initiated an intensive inside investigation, knowledgeable the households and notified the right authorities and regulatory companies and labored collaboratively with them on their investigations.”

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In accordance with information experiences, state data present Strotman turned a registered nurse in Could 2019. It’s not clear when she started working on the Henrico Hospital.

Because the investigation started, Henrico Youngsters’s Hospital has initiated new protocols to guard in opposition to doable abuse. They embrace elevated monitoring of the NICU ward and stricter procedures round treating infants there. 

Final week, the hospital issued an announcement saying authorities there are “each shocked and saddened” by Strotman’s arrest, and are “targeted on persevering with to look after our sufferers and offering help to our colleagues who’ve been deeply and personally impacted by this investigation.”