Shocking court documents reveal how Virginia nightmare nurse Erin Strotman was caught on camera breaking a premature baby’s leg
Details of how twisted nurse Erin Strotman broke the legs of babies in her care have been released in a shocking police report.
The nurse from Midlothian, Virginia, was caught on video breaking the femur of a five-month-old boy in the neonatal intensive care unit at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital in Richmond.
The child was also found to have a broken right tibia and several broken ribs, the report said.
Strotman, 26, grabbed the boy — identified only as YH — by the legs and applied pressure, Detective Megan Lynch wrote.
‘Madam. Stotman was observed putting her weight on YH’s legs, Lynch added.
‘Madam. Strotman was then observed to grab both legs and push them back to where YH’s feet were near his head.
“YH appeared to be crying and in distress,” the detective wrote, noting that the boy’s left leg moved normally, but the right leg did not.
Strotman has been charged with malicious wounding and child abuse after being accused damage to seven newborn babies under her care in the hospital.
Shocking court documents revealed nurse Erin Elizabeth Strotman, 26, was caught on camera putting her weight on a premature baby’s legs – resulting in a broken left femur
Social services told parents Dominique and Tori Hackey that they had determined that a NICU worker at the hospital caused their son Noah’s fracture
Noah was one of seven babies who suffered unexplained injuries at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, from 2023 to 2024
She has only been charged in connection with one child so far, but remains in jail after a judge denied her bail.
The video was taken on November 10 after Strotman returned to work after she and three colleagues had their entire wages suspended for almost a year after four boys suffered unexplained leg fractures.
They were allowed to return after an investigation revealed who was responsible for the injuries.
Details of how Strotman allegedly injured the boy come after sources close to the hospital told DailyMail.com she was “racist” and initially only targeted black children.
One source told DailyMail.com: ‘The majority of the babies were black babies. When she returned and they noticed the pattern, she tried to throw them off by targeting a white baby and a girl baby.
The source said Strotman was a weak student during her time in nursing school.
‘She wasn’t the strongest in the class, she was literally one of the slowest. People say she’s a white supremacist, but that’s a bit of an exaggeration.
“I definitely felt like she was racist, she had deep Southern roots,” they explained.
The documents revealed that after Strotman placed her weight on his legs, the baby was “crying and in distress” as she “moved the left leg back and forth” — the footage reportedly showed the left leg moving normally, but the right leg not.
Colleagues and former classmates of Strotman told DailyMail.com they suspected she was ‘racist’ and were ‘not surprised it was her’
The incidents took place in the NICU department of Henrico Doctors’ Hospital. They later installed “angel cameras,” which court documents allegedly caught Strotman carrying out the gruesome act
“I was surprised by what she did, but I’m not surprised it was her. If anyone did something crazy, she would have been at the top of the list.”
The hospital announced on Christmas Eve that it would “not be admitting any additional babies to our NICU at this time” after three babies were found with fractures in late November and December.
While the nurses were suspended, the hospital was installed ‘angel cameras’ that allowed constant monitoring of the premature babies. The staff claimed that this is how Strotman was caught.
Officials confirmed that the injuries discovered this year were “similar to an incident involving four infants in the summer of 2023,” with Henrico County police reviewing “dozens of videos” from inside the unit.
Detectives are re-examining the 2023 and 2024 cases as part of the wider investigation.
Hospital staff are shocked that Strotman was allowed to return to work, a nurse told DailyMail.com: “Virginia has a right to work, so you don’t have to have a reason to fire someone.
“If you even suspected that these people were harming babies, you can cut them off,” added the nurse, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“But why let them come back and harm more babies? They shouldn’t have let her come back.
The nurse said that some fractures are common during childbirth.
“Shoulders and collarbones break all the time as they emerge from the birth canal, but legs never occur,” they explained.
Strotman is seen with her family after graduating from nursing school in 2019. They declined to comment on her arrest, with one telling DailyMail.com: ‘I don’t want to talk about that’
Noah has made a full recovery. His father Dominique was present at Strotman’s arraignment on Friday, along with three of the other families who had babies who were allegedly abused in the NICU.
‘It would have to be a lot of coincidence for that fracture to be the same as in all those babies.
‘It would be like trying to break a pencil. You have to put some force behind it. That’s highly unlikely unless you accidentally drop one of them and break his lower leg, below the knee, and that’s what was broken.”
Despite the injuries, the babies are reportedly all doing well and recovering after being transferred to different hospitals.
Those who trained and worked with Strotman told DailyMail.com they were shocked she was placed on the specialized unit in the first place.
One described her as ‘weird’ and always ‘in the background’ during their training at ECPI University in Richmond.
Strotman’s arrest came after Dominique and Tori Hackey spoke out after Virginia Child Services informed them that their newborn baby Noah had been abused by a NICU worker when he suffered a broken leg following his premature birth.
Dominique attended Strotman’s arraignment on Friday, along with three of the other families who had babies who were allegedly abused in the NICU.