Nurse accused of beating, breaking the leg of blind, non-verbal child in California home
The parents of a 11-year-old boy who is blind and unable to speak said an in-home nurse they hired to care for their son instead abused him, punching the boy in the head and breaking his leg at their Los Angeles County home.
The couple named the nurse Dorothy Wright and her employer, Maxim Healthcare Services, in a lawsuit filed on April 23 in Los Angeles County Superior Court alleging child abuse, battery, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The boy's parents, Melanie and Steven Aguilar, said their son's hips were dislocated and he developed severe scoliosis due to the abuse. The son was unable to tell anyone what occurred to him due to being non-verbal, the complaint said.
The child suffers from bilateral perisylvian polymicrogyria, a rare neurological disorder that affects the outer cortex of the brain, according to the statement. Due to his condition he is legally blind, unable to speak, experiences seizures and is immobile due to underdeveloped hips.
Child hospitalized after profuse sweating and leg injury
On October 4, 2023, Steven Aguilar said he was working at his home office when Wright told him that his son was sweating profusely, according to the complaint. When Melanie Aguilar returned home, she found her son in a "pool of sweat" going in and out of consciousness. Wright then told the parents that a night nurse had possibly done something to hurt the victim's leg.
The mother told the nurse to put on a short sleeve shirt and give him Tylenol but Melanie Aguilar later said she would have given him a cortisol injection instead "had she had known the true state of his pain and condition."
The mother then took the boy to the ER where doctors took X-rays and learned that his leg had been broken due to physical abuse, the complaint said.
"Ms. Aguilar continued to suffer extreme distress, as she was watching her son literally struggling to breathe, and watching his oxygen levels continue to drop," the complaint said.
Video showed Wright breaking victim's leg
Child Protective Services then interrogated the Melanie, who then called Steven.
Looking at home camera videos from that day, Steven said he found footage showing the Wright aggressively handling the boy, throwing him on his side and jerking his leg up over his hips. The footage also showed Wright breaking his legs and causing him to go limp.
Officers arrested Wright five days later and eventually charged her with four felony counts of willful cruelty to a child. Her criminal case is ongoing in the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Additional home security footage showed Wright allegedly punching the child on seven different days in the span of two months, the lawsuit said.
Wright worked as the victim's nurse since September 2021, per the complaint.
Maxim fires nurse, launches investigation
Maxim Healthcare Services has terminated Wright, notified the proper regulatory entities and launched an internal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the patient's care, according to a statement.
"Our top priority is the safety and well-being of our patients and their families. We take any allegations of patient harm extremely seriously. We do not tolerate behavior inconsistent with our ethical code of conduct or alleged violations of the law," Maxim Healthcare Services said in a statement to USA TODAY. "We continue to cooperate fully with all agencies involved in this matter."
Ryan Saba, the family's attorney, said the home health care service has a history of hiring nurses who are abusive to patients including vulnerable children.
"This is another tragic situation where a child was abused by Maxim and this nurse. This lawsuit is designed to make sure that this type of conduct will never happen to another family," Saba said in a news release.
The complaint said the company failed to perform necessary background checks before hiring Wright and failed to monitor the care she gave to the victim. The company offers home health care services in 37 states and has 21 office locations in California providing care for 43,000 patients a year, according to their website.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Maxim Healthcare nurse accused of abusing, injuring non-verbal child
