Infant hospitalized after babysitter allegedly shakes and throws him across the room

By Mycah Hatfield

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    COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KTRK) — An infant is set to undergo surgery after his babysitter reportedly shook and threw him against a wall when he wouldn’t stop crying in College Station, according to records.

The 5-month-old baby is in and out of consciousness at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, and is set to undergo surgery on Thursday.

Fidelina Velasquez said she left her baby, Adrian, and her 2-year-old son with Berta Evelin Lopez-Vasquez on Jan.19 while she and her husband went to work. Lopez-Vasquez was referred to the family by a friend. The mother said this was the second time she used the 21-year-old as a babysitter.

After getting to work at a restaurant in College Station, Velasquez said she got a call from Lopez-Vasquez saying something was wrong with Adrian.

“I started asking if the baby was OK,” Velasquez said in Spanish. “She said, ‘yes’ and then started acting strangely over the phone. From there, I insisted again, ‘Is the baby OK?’ and she kept saying, ‘Yes, the baby is fine.'”

Velasquez said she immediately knew something was wrong with Adrian, so she left work and went to the babysitter’s home.

She took the 5-month-old to a hospital in College Station, where he was quickly transferred to Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.

Lopez-Vasquez first told investigators she was tossing the baby in the air to get him to stop crying and accidentally dropped him, according to a probable cause statement.

Investigators said she eventually admitted to harming the baby.

“(Lopez-Vasquez) stated that Adrian continued crying non-stop and was getting frustrated and angered with his crying,” the probable cause statement said. “She stated that she fed him, changed his pamper and changed his clothing and he continued to cry. She stated that she then picked him up off her bed and began holding him with both hands and looking at him asking him why he didn’t stop crying. She stated that after a few seconds or so, she then lost it and began shaking the baby vigorously for about five seconds for him to stop crying. She stated that at that moment he continued to cry and out of frustration and anger, then threw him against the wall that her bed backed up against.”

Investigators determined the woman threw the baby six to seven feet

When he hit the ground, the woman told police that his eyes rolled back, he began seizing and stopped breathing.

“I have no idea why she reacted this way,” Velasquez said.

After, Lopez-Vasquez said she called her husband instead of calling 911 because “she was afraid of getting into trouble and having her children taken away.”

St. Joseph’s Hospital found that Adrian had fractures on the back of his skull and brain damage.

Doctors at Texas Children’s noted that he continued to have seizures, and has fractures to the left side of his skull, bruising to his forehead and eye area, abusive head trauma, retinal hemorrhages to the left side and a hematoma to the brain that caused severe swelling and bleeding.

“It’s totally unjust,” Velasquez said. “My baby is so small. He can’t walk. He can’t talk. He can’t speak for himself. He is just a baby.”

Lopez-Vasquez has been charged with serious bodily injury to a child, and is now in jail on a $200,000 bond, documents show.

Adrian has already undergone one surgery at Texas Children’s Hospital, and his second surgery is scheduled for Thursday. His mother said, she hopes to know more of what the future looks like for her 5-month-old.

Currently, she said he is in critical but stable condition and long-term effects from this incident have not been determined.

“He moves a little bit,” she said. “He opens his eyes, but he sleeps a lot too.”

Both Velasquez and her husband work at Nam Cafe in College Station. The owner made a GoFundMe page to help with the family’s expenses.

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