Virginia NICU Nurse Arrested After Seven Babies Suffer Broken Bones
A Virginia NICU nurse has been arrested after at least seven babies suffered inexplicable broken bones.
Erin Strotman, 26, has been charged with felony child neglect and felony malicious wounding over injuries to one baby at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital in Richmond, police announced Friday.
The maximum penalties for the two charges are 10 and 20 years in prison respectively, although authorities emphasized that they are still investigating the injuries to the other babies.
Three babies were hurt just weeks ago in November and December, and four more babies were previously injured during the summer of 2023.
The Henrico County Police Division said it is conducting a “thorough investigation” that includes reviewing “dozens of videos from inside the NICU.” Detectives are looking into the cases from both 2023 and 2024 as part of this “broader investigation,” police said.
Last month, a couple spoke out, saying Virginia Child Services informed them that one of their premature newborn twins, who had suffered a fractured leg, had been physically abused by a NICU employee.
“It’s my baby boy. I feel like I’ve done nothing to protect him and that hurts. It pisses me off,” Dominique Hackey, the twins’ father, told CBS 6 before Strotman’s arrest.
“Somebody needs to be held accountable for my son, for everybody’s kid, somebody needs to be held accountable, it’s too many in such a short period of time,” he said.
The injuries forced the hospital to stop admitting newborns to its NICU “out of an abundance of caution,” Henrico Doctors’ Hospital announced on Christmas Eve.
“While fractures occasionally happen with pre-term babies since they lack full fetal bone development, we are actively working to determine how these fractures occurred,” the hospital said.
On Friday, the hospital also confirmed a “former employee” has been arrested in connection with the NICU fractures.
“We are both shocked and saddened by this development in the investigation and are focused on continuing to care for our patients and providing support to our colleagues who have been deeply and personally impacted by this investigation,” Henrico Doctors’ Hospital said in a statement.
“We are grateful to those colleagues, who have dedicated their professional lives to the care and safety of our patients, as well as to law enforcement and the other agencies who have worked aggressively and tirelessly with us on this investigation,” the hospital said.
The case eerily echoes that of Lucy Letby, the British neonatal nurse convicted of murdering seven babies around 2016. No deaths have been reported in the Virginia case, however.
She appeared in court for the first time on Friday and is being held without bond and barred from contact with children. She is expected in court again on March 24.