Newly released video shows the chaotic and heartbreaking scene inside a care facility where nurses first discovered that a patient in a vegetative state had given birth, Arizona’s Family reports.
Footage of the 2018 incident – from a police body camera – was released recently to the television station years after it had formally requested the video under the state’s public records law.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, 36-year-old Nathan Sutherland, a nurse who worked at Hacienda Healthcare in Phoenix, would later be charged and convicted of sexual assault in connection with the pregnancy.
Staffers did not know the severely incapacitated victim was pregnant, but on December 29, 2018, a nurse discovered the woman was in labor.
“And when I looked, it was a [inaudible] . . . the baby coming,” a nurse told a police officer, according to the body camera footage.
The victim was 29 years old at the time of the assault; she had been at the facility since she was just 3 years old, according to NBC News.
A former care facility employee, whose name was not published, offered more detail about the nurse who first discovered the pregnancy. “When she opened the diaper, there was a head. And that poor aide didn’t work for a month. She was so distraught, so traumatized by the whole thing,” the former employee told Arizona’s Family.
The baby boy was not breathing at first but was resuscitated.
A DNA test would later confirm that Sutherland assaulted the victim. But days after the birth, he was still a trusted employee at the care facility, so much so that the mother of the victim believed he would protect her daughter.
“One of the parents approached him one night and said, ‘I’m so glad you’re working tonight. I know my child is always safe when you’re here,” the former employee told the television station.
The victim now lives in a different care facility and is said to be healthy, according to Arizona’s Family.
Sutherland pleaded guilty to felony charges of abusing and sexually assaulting a patient; he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, according to The Arizona Republic.
As for the child, he will turn 5 years old in December and is said to be talking and walking, but the family’s attorney told the television station it is too early to tell how his cognitive capacity will develop.
On Thursday, Hacienda Healthcare issued a statement in response to the release of the body camera footage. The statement reads:
Seeing video from that night almost 5 years ago is still gut-wrenching. Our hearts again go out to the victim and her family – and we remain disgusted by the behavior of the nurse who harmed a patient.
Almost 5 years later, virtually everything about Hacienda HealthCare is different. We have new board members, new leaders, new personnel, new security infrastructure, new procedures, and new resident care protocols. We have implemented every change required by state and federal agencies – plus our own improvements – and we have passed multiple inspections since then.
Nothing can change that awful day, but we have worked diligently every day since to make sure no one in our care ever again suffers harm.
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[Feature Photo: Nathan Sutherland/Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office]
