| Updated: 8/28/2009 8:31 am |
Published: 8/27/2009 11:28 am |
A mother was arrested at Arkansas Children's Hospital accused of disconnecting her 20-month-old son's feeding tube. Dakota Robinson was being treated for what doctors are calling a "failure to thrive" situation.
Tonya Robinson, 27, was arrested and booked into the Pulaski County Jail. Police say Robinson purposely disconnected her malnourished son's feeding tube at Arkansas Children's Hospital. Robinson went to jail charged with one count of endangering the welfare of a minor. She is now out on a $10,000 bond.
"It's very sad that someone would injure a small child like that, especially when the child is in a facility to help the child get better, and to find out the mother is causing part of the injury," said Lt. Terry Hastings with the Little Rock Police Department.
Dakota only weighed 18 pounds when doctors first saw him. "We were notified of a case at Children's Hospital, a possible incident of a child malnourished," Hastings said.
When Dakota was brought to Children's Hospital, he was hooked up to a feeding tube but when he started losing weight nurses got suspicious.
"Safety is a top priority at Arkansas Children's Hospital; the nursing staff was monitoring the patient’s room," said Dan McFadden with Arkansas Children’s Hospital. "They saw something that was not quite right and they went to the room and made contact with security. That's when police got involved."
Police say nurses watched Robinson cover Dakota with a blanket. "She was covering her son with a blanket in an attempt to conceal what she was doing," Lt. Hastings said.
Police also tell us Robinson disconnected the feeding tube from the port in Dakota's abdomen. Then she dumped the formula into Dakota's diaper, instead of the feeding tube.
"Thanks to the quick actions of our nursing staff, any potential harm to the patient was averted," McFadden said.
DHS says Dakota is still at Children's Hospital and that his condition is improving.
