A doctor has testified that as a two-month-old baby lay in ICU fighting for his life, with massive head injuries, broken arms and bruises all over his body, his parents caused a commotion as they tried to have the baby discharged.
This was two days before the child died in Steve Biko Academic Hospital.
The baby’s mother sat sobbing in the dock, covering her face in her hands as Dr John Samuels told the Pretoria High Court that the baby’s brain was so swollen that it could hardly fit in the skull.
“The swelling was so massive that it pushed all the moisture out of the brain and it pushed open the seams of the skull,” the doctor said.
The injuries suffered by Wade Schoeman, who died at the age of two months, were so horrific that part of his brain was already dying by the time he was admitted to hospital, Judge Cynthia Pretorius was told.
He had two broken arms and broken ribs, which were already in the process of healing, and bruises all over his face and body.
The baby’s parents, Marissa Rudman, 34, and Nolan Schoeman, 32, of Valhalla, are facing a charge of murder following the baby’s death on April 7, 2009, as well as a charge of abusing and neglecting the baby. They are also facing a charge of child abuse and neglect regarding another child (now nine) who may not be identified.
Both pleaded not guilty to these charges, with Schoeman saying he had no idea the child was being abused. He added in his explanation of plea that he would “like to know who ill-treated his son, whom he loved dearly”.
Rudman said she too was oblivious that her child had been abused and only discovered the night before she took him to the Steve Biko Academic Hospital that he had bruises all over his body and face.
She said that when she took him to hospital after he had convulsions and cried in a strange, high-pitched voice, the nursing staff had asked her “‘who dropped this baby”.
According to Rudman, she only then “realised” that her partner had hurt the baby and said she had been traumatised ever since.
But Samuels testified on Thursday that the baby’s injuries had been so obvious that anyone would have seen them with the naked eye.
He also said that the massive brain injury must have been caused by a hard blunt force blow to the head, while a lung injury indicated a severe blow directly to the baby’s chest.
The doctor, who is also a neurosurgeon, said he had noticed a torn membrane on the baby’s lip, which was indicative of child abuse.
A team of neurosurgeons worked non-stop to try to save the baby, but Samuels said that two days before Wade’s death, a nurse had phoned him as the parents were insisting on having the baby discharged.
The father, he said, “took over” the ward in which Wade was being kept and refused to allow anyone to come near the baby. Samuels had phoned the police and the security to help with the situation. He said that by the time he got to the hospital, the parents had left without Wade.
The baby did not respond to the treatment and died on April 7, 2009.
Samuels said the parents had told the hospital they had noticed the bruises on the child’s forehead and they suspected it was a spider bite. “But when I saw the baby, I immediately thought it was physical trauma and not a spider bite.”
The doctor added the baby had clear marks on his face and body, in the form of finger prints. He was adamant that all the bruises were clear for all to see, adding that the baby’s life would have been saved if he had been taken to hospital in time.
Part of the State’s case is that the mother discharged the baby from the Pretoria West Hospital, about a week before he was admitted to Steve Biko Academic Hospital. He was suffering from pneumonia at the time.
Rudman, through her lawyer, admitted it, but said “she realised the doctors at that hospital did not know what they were doing” and she had wanted to take Wade to a paediatrician. However, she had taken him home as she had no money. - Pretoria News