Katharina Buczek
Later, an x-ray revealed that Child I had “a massive amount of gas in her stomach and in her bowl, and her lungs appeared squashed.” But, as soon as Child I had the air removed, her condition improved.
Still, just half an hour before Lucy’s shift ended later that night– at about 7:30 p.m.– the nurse gave Child I another saline injection and adjusted the baby girl’s glucose infusion.
“Within moments, you know what happens, don’t you, Child I deteriorated again,” Johnson said to the court.
“But, as I have already said, Child I was resilient, and overnight, once removed from the orbit of Lucy Letby, Child I’s condition improved.”
Then, about two weeks later, during the night shift of October 12, 2015, Child I’s second incident occurred. Again, Lucy was not the baby girl’s designated nurse, and Child I had been doing well.
However, at 3:00 a.m., Child I’s designated nurse had to “temporarily” leave the nursery. And when that nurse returned about twenty minutes later, she found Lucy standing in the doorway of Child I’s room.
“The room was darkened because it was night, and as soon as she appeared, Lucy Letby said to her [the nurse] that Child I looked pale,” Johnson recalled.
“Then, she turned the light on, and Child I appeared to be at the point of death and was not breathing.”
At this point, the prosecution asked the jury to consider how Lucy could have possibly seen that Child I was pale if she had only been standing in the doorway with “minimal lighting.”
Johnson also implored the jurors to consider that Lucy could have potentially shut off the emergency crash call alarm that should have gone off after Child I suffered slowed breathing.
Child I was again found to have “gross gas swelling throughout her bowel and signs of something called chronic lung disease of prematurity.” The baby girl was given CPR and adrenaline, and she was intubated and ventilated.
