A Virginia Hospital’s NICU Shut Down After Mysterious Bone Fractures of Newborns
The father of a Virginia toddler who suffered a mysterious bone fracture as a newborn in a Richmond hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) says that the victims all shared one common trait – they were all boys.
Dominique Hackey, whose son Noah suffered an unexplained fractured tibia in September 2023, says that the victims were all different, came from diverse families, and had nothing else in common. The only common thread among the victims was that they were all boys.
The Henrico Doctors’ Hospital shut down its NICU on Christmas Eve after authorities launched an investigation into a series of “unexplainable fractures” of bones in newborn patients. The hospital had suspended three employees, including 26-year-old registered nurse Erin Elizabeth Ann Strotman, who was arrested on Friday on charges of malicious wounding and child abuse.
The investigation is ongoing, with police investigating six more cases, including the Hackeys’ case and three other reopened cases that were closed without charges last year due to a lack of evidence. Hackey has been in touch with the other victim families and is hoping to meet them.
The victims’ families are working together to try to find answers and to ensure that justice is served. Hackey is also speaking out publicly to raise awareness about his experience and the attack on his son, who was born at 28 weeks and six days.
The hospital is cooperating with investigators and has given police hundreds of hours of surveillance video. Medical records show that the injury was inflicted a day earlier than the Hackeys were previously told, and the hospital has since implemented 24-hour video surveillance and livestreaming of newborns’ rooms.
It is not clear what motivated the alleged attacks, but Hackey says that it is important to remember that the first emotion that babies are supposed to experience is joy and laughter, not pain. Detectives are asking anyone with information that could help them bring more charges to come forward.