Mother begged staff 'please don't let my baby die' as medics tried to save him, Lucy Letby trial hears
17 October 2022, 16:03
A mother begged hospital staff "Please don't let my baby die" as they tried desperately to resuscitate him, the trial of alleged baby killer nurse Lucy Letby has heard.
Letby, 32, is accused of the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of 10 others while working in the neo-natal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital.
On Monday, jurors at Manchester Crown Court began to hear evidence about her first two alleged victims in June 2015 - twins who suffered sudden collapses in their incubators.
She is said to have fatally injected an excess amount of air into the bloodstream of Child A, and then attempted to murder his sister, Child B, via the same method.
The parents were watching television in a side room on the night after the twins' birth when a member of the nursing staff came in and said "You need to come quick", the court heard.
In a witness statement, Child A's mother said: "All I can remember is being wheeled into a room and it felt like hundreds of people were standing over his cot and trying to resuscitate him.
"A nurse asked if I was religious and if I wanted them to say a prayer."
Child A's grandmother recalled: "The minute I went into that room and saw the baby boy I knew he was gone. He was blue. "The room seemed full of medical staff. (Child A's mother) was sobbing uncontrollably at this point. She said 'Please don't let my baby die, please don't let my baby die'.
"(Child A's father) was in shock. He was like a statue and didn't say a word."
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She said a consultant told the family that Child A was not responding but her daughter continued to say 'Please don't let him die, please don't let him die'.
After they were told that Child A would have brain damage and further complications if he survived, she said she told her daughter 'You need to let him go'.
Child A's mother said "No, carry on", she said, but eventually she relented and "simply nodded her head" to the doctors to stop chest compressions.
In his witness statement read to the court, Child A's father said to his partner "something along the lines of 'We have to let him go, he is not there any more'."
Both Child A's parents remarked: "One of the things that upset me the most is that I never had the opportunity to hold my son when he was alive."
A court order prohibits reporting of the identities of surviving and dead children allegedly attacked by Letby, and prohibits identifying parents or witnesses connected with the children.
Letby, originally from Hereford, denies all the offences which are said to have been committed between June 2015 and June 2016.
