Mom unhooks child from medical equipment, shoves pregnant nurse at hospital, feds say

A Georgia woman whose child was receiving treatment at a U.S. Army hospital became “abusive” and attacked several nurses, including one who was pregnant, federal prosecutors said.

Now she will serve prison time over the violent “outburst” at the Winn Army Community Hospital at Fort Stewart on June 27, 2022, according to prosecutors and court documents. The Army post is about a 40-mile drive southwest from Savannah.

That day, after the woman brought her child to the hospital for treatment, she began demanding that medical staff perform certain procedures on her daughter that could have been more dangerous, weren’t recommended and weren’t “part of the standard of care,” prosecutors said. The mother had no professional medical training, officials noted.

While staff continued to treat her daughter, the woman unhooked the child from hospital equipment and started to “forcibly” remove her from the facility, according to prosecutors.

As staff members tried to stop her, she pushed a pregnant nurse and pushed another nurse into a wall, prosecutors said.

She was “yelling at them and using profane language,” prosecutors said.

Military police responded and ultimately took the child out of the woman’s car, according to prosecutors, who said the girl was returned to the hospital for treatment.

The woman, 35, of Liberty County, has been sentenced to one year and four months in prison after she was convicted of obstructing and hindering emergency professionals and misdemeanor counts of simple battery and disorderly conduct, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia said in a Sept. 4 news release.

Her defense attorney, Katie A. Brewington, didn’t immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment on Sept. 4. Brewington plans to appeal the woman’s sentence, according to a notice she filed Sept. 4.

McClatchy News is not identifying the woman to protect the identity of her child.

Ahead of sentencing, Brewington wrote in court documents that her client “(overreacted) in a time of panic and fear” and “believed that her daughter was in medical danger and not getting appropriate medical treatment.”

She said in a sentencing memorandum that a “collateral” consequence of her client’s conviction was that she lost her job as a paralegal with Morgan & Morgan when a jury found her guilty in the case in April.

“The behavior she displayed in the hospital during this incident is not the behavior she is known for throughout her community,” Brewington wrote.

As a result of the altercation, the woman is banned from the facility, prosecutors said.

She must report to a Bureau of Prisons facility by Sept. 23 to begin serving her sentence, according to officials.

“While family members and patients will occasionally disagree on standards of care in medical facilities, it is inexcusable to physically attack and disrupt the work of health care professionals,” U.S. Attorney Jill E. Steinberg said in a statement. “This sentence of incarceration makes clear that violent and abusive behavior will not be tolerated.”

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