Katharina Buczek
The first incident allegedly occurred during the night shift of September 25 into September 26, 2015. That evening, Lucy was Child H’s designated nurse.
And at one point during Lucy’s shift, the baby needed a blood transfusion as well as constant monitoring following a deterioration period a few days prior. This earlier deterioration was not tied to Lucy.
However, the ICU chart revealed that Lucy administered a dose of morphine at 1:25 a.m., as well as a saline drip at 2:50 a.m. Then, at 3:22 a.m., Child H– a baby girl– suffered a severe collapse and required complete resuscitation.
“Lucy Letby would have had the cover of legitimate treatment of accessing the intravenous lines for Child H just before she collapsed,” Johnson said.
And to corroborate this suspicion, the hospital’s attending consultant concluded that the cause of Child H’s collapse was unclear– unlike Child H’s previous incidences of collapse.
Nonetheless, Child H did show stable improvement after being treated by hospital staff. And the following evening, Lucy Letby was not the nurse assigned to care for the baby girl.
But, at about 3:30 a.m., Child H’s oxygen levels began to rapidly fall out of nowhere. The hospital’s registrar claimed they responded to the emergency alarm call and found Lucy administering a neopuff device to help Child H’s breathing.
Apparently, the registrar had thought that Lucy was the baby girl’s designated nurse at the time. However, when Child H’s actual nurse returned, she noted “pink-tinged secretions” around the baby’s mouth.
“There was no reason for what was going on,” Johnson said to the court.
Following that second incident, Child H was transferred to another hospital– Arrowe Park– and reportedly showed “dramatic improvement” immediately after arriving there.
Child H was concluded to have suffered no permanent consequences of the alleged attack. Still, Johnson used Child H’s case to further support a developing pattern.
