A British court heard how a baby triplet was found to have an abnormal amount of gas in his stomach hours after a neonatal nurse murdered his brother in 2016.
The Standard reported that the triplet boys were born in good condition at Countess of Chester Hospital but one of them died two days later on June 23. After the first baby’s death, his brother underwent an x-ray which detected “gas-filled loops throughout the abdomen,” according to court testimony.
The BBC reported that suspect Lucy Letby, 33, was the designated nurse for the deceased baby and his brother who had the x-ray.
“I’ll be watching them both [surviving babies] like a hawk,” she allegedly wrote to a colleague.
On June 24, a day after the first baby’s death, the baby who reportedly had gas in his abdomen suffered multiple collapses in addition to a decreasing heart rate and plummeting blood oxygen levels. The second baby reportedly died later the same day after Letby and staff could not revive him.
After the second baby’s death, the triplet’s parents reportedly begged a team doctor to transport their surviving child to a specialized hospital instead of ambulance crews.
According to the BBC, an expert testified that the increased gas levels could have been caused by an infection or common bowel issues. The expert said it could have also been caused by air being injected via a nasogastric tube.
The first baby who died reportedly also had an x-ray taken hours before his death. The expert said that, like his brother, the x-ray shows elevated gas levels in his stomach.
Between 2015 and 2016, Letby allegedly killed seven babies and injured 10 more while working at Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit. She has denied claims that she injected air into the victims’ bloodstream and gave them insulin.
Previous testimony also linked Letby to the slaying of a 1.7-pound baby who reportedly had air forced into his stomach via a nasogastric tube. An expert testified that the boy was thriving at the time of his sudden death. The expert stated that he was “potentially at risk of complications” after birth, and he was receiving routine treatment for pneumonia.
However, the expert concluded that pneumonia did not kill the newborn.
A pediatric consultant had testified that he stopped Letby from killing a 98-minute-old baby, who was also born prematurely. The consultant reportedly caught Letby standing over the incubator as the baby’s oxygen levels plummeted. The consultant allegedly found the baby’s breathing tube was dislodged and that an alarm had been silenced.
Letby reportedly did not help the baby or seek backup. The consultant said he was already uneasy with Letby being alone with the preemie as he “started to notice a coincidence between unexplained deaths, serious collapses,” and Letby’s presence.
The trial continues.
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[Featured image: Lucy Letby/Handout]
