An Indiana father is facing charges of neglect leading to serious harm after allegedly shaking his 3-month-old daughter to the point where she ceased breathing.
Neil McCaffery, 26, was arrested on Wednesday, a week after his baby daughter was taken to the hospital with a severe brain bleed, WXIN reported.
According to Muncie Police, they responded to a call at the family’s residence on May 8 regarding an “unresponsive infant.” The parents explained to officers that the infant had a “gas bubble” lodged in her throat, and in their attempts to burp her, she suddenly became “limp.” Paramedics identified that the child was undergoing a seizure, prompting her emergency airlift to Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis. There, she was diagnosed with a “bilateral subdural hematoma,” which caused severe brain bleeding and affected the layers of her eyes.
The infant was quickly taken in for surgery to alleviate the brain pressure. In the following days, she experienced cardiac arrest, with doctors discovering additional bleeding on both sides of her brain, in her eyes, and along her spinal cord.
The child was placed on a feeding tube, and doctors said she would likely experience developmental delays.
They also said her injuries were consistent with being shaken or thrown on the ground.
In an initial interview with police, McCaffery said that he came home from work that day and was outside doing yard work when his wife said their baby was ussy from a “gas bubble.” He took the baby into his bedroom, where he put her on his knee and slapped her back to get her to burp. After that he put the baby on the bed and went “to count money.” His wife, he said, was in the room.
But hs suddenly noticed the baby’s ace was turning blue and that she was limp. While his wife called 911, he said, he put the child in front of a fan because she was hot.
In her initial interview, the child’s mother corroborated her husband’s statement except to say she was not in the room. When officers told her the child’s injuries were consistent with being shaken, she said she’d never done that.
Then she officers that her husband came into the house after hearing the baby “crying uncontrollaby” and took the baby into the bedroom. She said they were in the room for about four minutes until the baby stopped crying. Then McCaffrey came out and said she wasn’t breathing.
McCaffrey was booked into the Delaware County Jail and quickly released on a $20,000 bond.
