A Long Island nurse who was caught on video abusing a newborn baby boy in a neonatal ICU has been arrested, NBC News reports.
Amanda Burke, 29, was fired in February after the newborn’s father recorded her slamming his crying baby face down in a bassinet.
Burke was arrested Wednesday morning and charged with endangering the welfare of a child in connection with the Feb. 6 incident, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office announced.
Burke worked as a registered nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit at Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip on Long Island.
2-day-old baby Nikko was in the NICU for observation after receiving intravenous antibiotics for an infection.
Fidel Sinclair went to see his son in the NICU and noticed him crying through a small opening in a curtain over the window.
As he recorded his baby on his cellphone, a nurse grabbed Nikko, flipped him around and slammed him face down into the bassinet.
“I don’t know, it just broke me,” said Fidel. “I didn’t know what to do.”
Fidel showed the video to baby Nikko’s mother, Consuelo Saravia, who confronted the nurse.
Consuelo recalled the conversation: “I told her ‘I don’t want you to touch my child. You just slammed him.’ She said ‘Oh no, if you think I mishandled him or anything, I’m sorry.'”
“It was heartbreaking,” said Consuelo. “I couldn’t stop crying, I couldn’t even sleep.”
Burke was terminated “within hours” of the video going viral on the Internet.
Burke’s attorney, Robert C. Gottlieb, told NBC News: “This case should have never resulted in criminal charges.”
“Amanda is an outstanding, exemplary, compassionate nurse who did not and would never do anything to endanger any infant or patient under her care,” he said. “The baby involved was not injured or ever placed in any danger of injury. The District Attorney’s statements are off base and not justified by all the facts that will come out in court.”
Fidel said he’s thankful he went to check on his son when he did.
“If it wasn’t for God who sent me to check on him we would have never seen any of that happen,” he said. “And It would have kept happening overnight not only to him but the other babies, too.”
He added: “I find it messed up that in a room like that they have all the curtains closed.”
Catholic Health, which runs Good Samaritan Hospital, defended the use of closed curtains in the NICU windows.
“It is standard procedure to have closed curtains in the neonatal ICU to provide privacy for the patients and their families.”
Baby Nikko is at home and doing fine.
Watch the video below.
