Erin Strotman / Henrico County Sheriff's Office (Left), Dominique Hackey / Fox News video screengrab (Right)
CV NEWS FEED // Contrary to earlier reports, what six abused infants in one hospital’s neonatal intensive unit (NICU) had in common was sex, not race, one victim’s father has declared.
According to Fox News Digital, Dominic Hackey’s son Noah suffered a broken tibia in September 2023 while he was in the NICU at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital in Virginia. Noah and his twin brother, Micah, were both premature, born around 28 weeks. Doctors told the parents that Micah, who was relying on a ventilator, might not make it.
Hackey said he is now in contact with all but one of the families of six other victims who suffered similar “unexplainable fractures” while they were at the hospital. He told Fox News Digital that only two of the victims are black.
“So far, in chatting amongst ourselves, we can’t find a pattern of why our babies, other than that: they were just boys,” he said.
Now, Noah and Micah are healthy 16-month-olds. Noah needed physical therapy after he was released from the NICU. However, Hackey said both are now doing very well and that Noah is climbing, almost running, and going to “be jumping off things pretty soon here.”
Police confirmed to the Hackeys that their son had been abused. The parents initially thought that it was a strange accident, but the boys’ paternal grandmother, Hackey said in a video Fox News Digital shared, immediately suspected abuse since Noah’s tibia was not broken during birth.
The hospital’s NICU was forced to close on Christmas Eve 2024. Only then did the Hackeys find out through a news story that other babies had been injured at the same NICU.
Erin Elizabeth Ann Strotman, a 26-year-old nurse, has been charged with malicious wounding and child abuse in one of the cases. The other cases are under investigation.
The hospital placed Strotman on paid leave at one point, which Hackey thinks is evidence that the hospital suspected wrongdoing.
“Finding out that she was put on paid leave in connection with our cases, that the hospital suspected her, that’s all new information … to all of us,” Hackey said, referencing the victims’ families.
Despite the traumatic abuse that Baby Noah underwent, Hackey is grateful that Noah and Micah are now happy and healthy.
“Experiencing two miscarriages and then having twins, that’s amazing,” he said. “And having them both here after being told you might lose one of them, the whole pregnancy and then after the pregnancy, it’s truly a blessing, truly a blessing. Not many people have the privilege to be parents, and I was blessed two times over, so I’m going to do whatever I can to protect them.”
