A registered nurse has been arrested and charged with malicious wounding and felony child abuse in the USA.
Henrico County Police announced Friday that Erin Elizabeth Ann Strotman, 26, was arrested in connection with an incident that occurred in November.
Police said in a news release that they have reopened all the cases reporting mysteriously injured babies at the hospital from 2023 and 2024.
Officers are combing through hundreds of hours of surveillance footage from the hospital, according to the release, trying to piece together what happened to at least seven babies.
“We are committed to protecting our residents, particularly our youngest and most vulnerable,” the news release read.
Families of three of the babies attended Strotman’s arraignment Friday, swapping stories of the horrifying moment they discovered their children had been injured.
Among them was Dominique Hackey, the father of twin boys who were born at 28 weeks and spent nearly three months in the NICU in 2023.
Hackey described that time as among the most difficult in his life, even before he suspected that one of his sons was being abused. He and his wife had endured two miscarriages and now were watching one of their young sons fight for his life. Their other son, Noah, was seemingly making a strong recovery, but in September 2023 a nurse informed them that Noah had a fractured leg, though they cause remained unclear.
“It was very confusing time because you bring one of my babies back to life, then you abuse my other baby,” Hackey said. “How am I supposed to feel?”
Hackey called his mother, a former NICU nurse, and she immediately reported the incident to Child Protective Services. This began more than a year-long train of opened and closed investigations.
The hospital opened an investigation but closed it after a few weeks, Hackey said, theorizing that the fracture may have come from an overly rough injection. Next, Hackey said Henrico police began investigating, but closed the inquiry in January 2024 because they couldn’t identify a suspect, even though officers told him they suspected abuse.
Then in March, Hackey received a call from child protective services informing him that his son was one of four babies injured at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital during summer 2023 and they were certain that criminal child abuse was involved. When a friend sent Hackey an article just last month reporting three more injured babies, he knew he had to speak up.
“Finding out there were seven total was gut wrenching,” Hackey said. “I felt like I have to do something. If the only thing I can do is speak out and tell my son’s story, that’s what I’m going to do, because before I felt like I was helpless. I failed him. Before my son knew joy, he experienced pain, and I wasn’t there to protect him.”
Inside the Henrico County courthouse Friday, Hackey and the other parents tried to piece together a timeline of the injuries. He learned another baby had been injured just four days after Noah. When one couple told Hackey their baby had suffered 12 fractures, he broke down in tears.
“Twelve fractures on a baby?” Hackey said. “I couldn’t even fathom it. I looked at that father and we hugged and cried together.”
Hackey said he was shocked to learn of Strotman’s arrest, saying he remembered her as a kind nurse and had no concerns at the time about her care. He said he spoke with other victims’ families who had shown him photos they had taken with Strotman and text messages referring to her as their favorite nurse.
A lawyer listed in court documents for Strotman, Scott Cardani, did not immediately response to requests for comment Saturday.
Before the arrest, hospital leadership enhanced its security measures in a fervent effort to find out what was happening to the most vulnerable babies in their care.
In late December, Henrico Doctors’ Hospital posted an update to its website announcing increased safety training programs for NICU caregivers, additional head-to-toe examinations of each NICU baby, new training to help health care providers identify and report neglect or abuse, and two new security systems including live-streaming technology that allows parents to watch their babies in the NICU at all times. The hospital also implemented an observer system to ensure caregivers were never alone with a baby.
“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 statement read.
The hospital commented on the arrest of its former employee Friday, saying in a statement that they will continue not to admit new babies into the NICU as they cooperate with law enforcement to figure out what happened.
“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 wrote in the 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.”
Strotman’s next court date is scheduled for March 24.
As for the Hackey twins, their father say they are “perfect.” Noah is now walking — almost running, Hackey said — and becoming an adventurous toddler. But the pain of their first few months alive still torments Hackey.
“Before my babies were able to feel any emotion they felt pain, and that right there haunts me so much,” Hackey said. “Their first emotion is supposed to be joy — smiling and giggling at us — and it wasn’t. It was pain and abuse.”