HENRICO COUNTY, Va. — To say the birth of Michele and Jake Salmons' second son at 38 weeks and 6 days did not go as planned is an understatement.
“He was born without a heartbeat, he wasn't breathing, his Apgar score was one. I think they could have just declared him dead,” Michele Salmons said.
Michele’s uterus ruptured on Nov. 15, 2023, at Henrico Doctors' Hospital, leading to an emergency C-section delivery and rescue operation.
“They did CPR and assisted breathing for seven minutes and brought him back to life and that was the start of his life,” Jake said.
Little Harvey suffered catastrophic brain damage and will live with the impacts for the rest of his life.
“This brain injury has resulted in a diagnosis of cerebral palsy. He's only 14 months old, he has a diagnosis of infantile spasms, which is a form of epilepsy, he's fed only by a G tube, which is a feeding tube so he doesn't eat by mouth,” Michele said.
Last May, Michele put a help wanted ad on Facebook in the hopes of finding in-home nursing care for Harvey at their Chesterfield home.
She interviewed several nurses before finding the right one.
Michele never thought twice about the other applicants until early January of this year.
"I texted my husband and I said I interviewed a girl named Erin from Henrico Doctors' Hospital, and almost immediately that text came back and he said it was her,” Michele said.
That would be Erin Strotman, a nurse now charged with abusing a baby in the neonatal intensive care unit at Henrico Doctors’.
Watch: Text messages Virginia NICU nurse charged with abusing baby sent revealed in court
"I just shook. I had that mama bear reaction where all I wanted in that very moment—I feel like I am shaking just sitting here thinking about this—was to hold my baby so close that nothing could touch him, nothing could hurt him,” Michele said.
She showed CBS 6 the Facebook messages and texts she exchanged with Strotman in late May and the notes she took during a phone interview with her.
"I am currently off on leave right now for personal reasons, and I have a lot of extra time. I could provide references from coworkers or managers,” Michele read from Strotman’s initial Facebook message.
In a follow-up text message, Strotman said she spoke with her manager and “she would 100 percent work with me on Thursday and Friday to make sure I could care for him and be well rested.”
“Did you ever get the sense of what she meant by her manager? Was she talking about her nursing manager at the hospital?” CBS 6’s Melissa Hipolit asked Michele.
“That was my understanding. Like I said, I felt like she was working just a diminished schedule. She told me she was on personal leave, but I still was under the impression she was just working minimal hours,” Michele replied.
Michele said Strotman also made some troubling comments about the hospital.
"She told me things such as they were cutthroat. She told me they liked to heal you, a.k.a. the patient, and then kick you out, and then she also mentioned the quality of care gets overlooked,” Michele said as she read from the notes she took from her phone interview with Strotman.
And there were other statements that made Michele question if Strotman was the right candidate.
“Here she also told me in this phone call that she was on personal leave, telling me that she had a condition called POTS, either that is or in addition to a heart condition. She told me specifically that her heart rate was high when she was standing and therefore she had trouble working the four 12-hour shifts that were required of her to be in the NICU,” Michele recalled from her phone call with Strotman and the notes in her planner from that conversation.
As CBS 6 was first to report, the hospital forced Strotman to take paid administrative leave in September 2023 after an internal investigation into fractures suffered by four infants in the NICU.
Watch: NICU nurse charged with abusing baby to remain in jail pending mental health evaluation
“We now know she was dishonest in her conversations with Michele,” Jake said.
In a recent court hearing regarding the criminal charge Strotman now faces, Henrico Prosecutor Allison Martin said that another family has come forward to report Strotman offered nursing care to their child while she was on leave.
Martin said Strotman told that family she was on leave due to tuberculosis exposure.
“It’s despicable that she could have come into our home or gone into the home of others. Why did you not do something sooner?” Michele said.
Child Protective Services and Henrico Police investigated the 2023 cases, and CPS determined the infants had been abused but found there was not sufficient evidence to say Strotman was responsible.
The hospital brought Strotman back to work in September 2024.
Several weeks later, three more babies suffered mysterious broken bones in the NICU.
Investigators said Strotman was caught on camera abusing one of those infants in November 2024.
WATCH: Families of injured NICU babies react to charges against nurse
Martin said more charges are coming.
“Honestly, I felt like we dodged a monster coming into our home and caring for our baby,” Jake said.
Now, the Salmons family said they are calling for more transparency from hospital officials, arguing they owe it to the community.
“There are a lot of unanswered questions that Henrico Doctors' Hospital still needs to answer for the public and for families like ours, and for families who were impacted when their child was in the NICU,” Jake said.
We reached out to HCA, which owns Henrico Doctors’ Hospital, to ask the following specific questions about Strotman’s leave:
- Was Erin Strotman on paid administrative leave all the way from September 2023 to September 2024?
- Was she potentially taken off paid leave and just put on leave? Or was she potentially brought back to work during that time frame in a desk-type position?
- Was she potentially still working for HCA but not as a NICU nurse during that time frame?
- She told this family she was on personal leave because she was unable to be on her feet for 12-hour shifts due to POTS/a heart condition. Is that why she was on leave in May 2024?
- She said she got permission from her manager to have Thursdays and Fridays off to care for their child. Would she have even had a “manager” with HDH in May 2024
- Prosecutors said another family told them Strotman tried to care for their child and said she was on leave from the hospital due to a tuberculosis exposure. Would that have been true?
- Why did the hospital bring Strotman back to the NICU in September 2024?
Wes Hester, HCA Healthcare Capital Division Director of Media Relations, did not answer any of our questions but did share this:
"We certainly understand the desire for additional information. We appreciate the efforts by law enforcement and CPS to investigate this issue and continue to assist them. Because there is an ongoing criminal investigation, we are unable to provide information related to your questions as we do not want to interfere with the legal process."
CBS 6 is committed to sharing community voices on this important topic. Email your thoughts to the CBS 6 Newsroom.
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