The father of a two-year-old girl recovering from severe injuries in a Halifax intensive care unit is looking for answers after he said he tried to warn officials that his daughter was in danger.
The father, who saw his child on weekends, said he had been contacting the provincial Community Services Department about “minor issues” until April 10, when he called to report extensive bruising on her body.
“It didn’t make sense to me,” said the father, who cannot be named in order to protect his daughter’s identity. “It didn’t look like bumps, trips, falls — it didn’t look like something like that.”
He said he offered to send pictures of her injuries and a department employee told him someone would be in touch, but nobody contacted him.
Instead, he said he got a call on April 16 informing him the girl had been flown to the children’s hospital in Halifax.
“Now look where we’re at,” he said. “My kid’s in an intensive care unit.”
In an interview Friday, Cpl. Chris Marshall of the Nova Scotia RCMP confirmed the force’s major crimes unit is investigating the case of a two-year-old girl who’d been airlifted to the IWK children’s hospital in Halifax with life-threatening injuries .
Marshall said police in Lunenburg County got a call on April 16 from a local hospital about the girl.
“Her injuries were fairly significant,” he said. “She’s not out of the woods.”
Marshall said nobody had been arrested, but noted major criminal investigations often take a bit of time.
The father said he’d been allowed to visit his daughter in the hospital and he was horrified by the extent of her injuries.
“She’s never going to be the same again,” he said.
He said his child was in stable condition as of Saturday, but was paralyzed due to swelling in her brain. She was breathing with the help of a ventilator, he said.
He did not know if she would be paralyzed for life.
Carley Sampson, a spokesperson for Nova Scotia’s Department of Community Services, said she could not speak to specific cases.
“We are certainly holding this little girl in our thoughts,” Sampson said in an emailed statement Friday. “We want to assure you that when any referral of this type is received by the Department of Community Services, it is reviewed, assessed and considered for investigation according to the Children and Family Services Act.”
