Arrest Made After NICU Closure: Malicious Wounding and Felony Child Abuse
A Virginia woman has been arrested after a string of injuries to babies in the neonatal intensive care unit of the hospital where she worked.
Erin Strotman has been charged with malicious wounding and felony child abuse, according to the Henrico County Sheriff’s Office.
Police said that the 26-year-old was charged in connection with a November incident, per a news release obtained by People.
Last month, Henrico Doctors’ Hospital said it would not admit babies to its neonatal intensive care unit after three babies were found with fractures.
Police are “reviewing dozens of videos from inside the NICU,” while detectives are also “re-examining the 2023 and 2024 cases as part of this broader investigation,” the release from the department said.
When the hospital closed its neonatal intensive care unit, it said that the 2024 injuries were similar to injuries that took place in 2023.
In September 2023, Noah Hackey was one of the babies who suffered from a fractured tibia during a stay in the hospital’s NICU.
A letter from the local Department of Social Services later told his parents that “following a [thorough] CPS investigation this agency has determined the disposition of this report to be founded level 1 for physical abuse of Noah by an employee by the Henrico Doctor’s Hospital NICU,” according to WTVR-TV.
The employee was not named at the time.
The new information and reports that more babies were injured led to “instant anger, instant tears, because it’s not supposed to happen again, it’s not supposed to happen in the first place,” Noah’s father, Dominique, said.
“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,” Dominique said.
The hospital called the woman arrested a “former employee” in a statement on its website.
“There has been an ongoing investigation into fractures sustained by patients in our NICU, and this morning, the Henrico County Police Department arrested a former employee of the hospital in connection with that investigation,” the Friday statement said.
“We have been assisting law enforcement in their ongoing investigation and will continue to do so,” the statement added.
“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,” the hospital continued.
“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 statement noted.
According to WTVR-TV, Strotman was put on paid administrative leave in 2023. The station noted that the day of the crimes for which Strotman was charged was Nov. 10, 2024.
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