A Long Island registered nurse was arrested for slamming a newborn baby into a bassinet, NBC New York reports.
Amanda Burke was first relieved from her duties at Long Island Good Samaritan Hospital in New York after a video of her violently slamming a baby in the intensive care unit emerged. She was arrested months later, with Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney announcing that the 29-year-old was officially charged with a “single count of endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor.”
The incident was caught on tape by the child’s father, Fidel Sinclair when he visited his two-day-old son, Nikko, when he was being kept under close supervision as the doctors administered antibiotics in the NICU.
The NICU uses curtains for privacy reasons, but one day the curtain was lifted just enough for Sinclair to witness the horrific sight.
As he watched Burke care for his son, he began recording the nurse’s neglectful actions. In the video, Burke lifted and flipped Nikko over, and then slammed his face down in the bassinet.
“I don’t know, it just broke me,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do.”
Sinclair showed the video to the mother of the baby, Consuelo Saravia, who then confronted the nurse.
Saravia recalled the conversation to the news outlet, saying, “I told her ‘I don’t want you to touch my child. You just slammed him.”
Savaria added, “She said, ‘Oh no if you think I mishandled him or anything, I’m sorry.’” The family then showed the video to other hospital staff members.
Sinclair also spoke to the outlet, saying, “There were a lot of babies in there, and it made me feel like if that happened to Nikko, who else did that happen to? I find it messed up that in a room like that, they have all the curtains closed.”
“Upon learning of this incident, swift and immediate action was taken, including conducting an investigation and consequently terminating the individual involved,” Cathletic Heath, the owner of Good Samaritan Hospital, told the outlet. “Additionally, we reported the individual to the Department of Health for further review. Keeping our patients safe remains our paramount concern.”
