Infant’s injuries ‘unlikely an accident’, doctors say

Doctors who examined injuries suffered by a baby who was fatally hurt while in the care of her babysitter say they were unlikely to have been caused by accident, a court has heard.

Aaliyah Ashlyn Chand died after being critically injured at a Christchurch home on January 6, 2015.

Bleeding in her eyes was consistent with a baby being shaken, jurors in the High Court at Christchurch were told yesterday, while bruises to her cheeks were ‘‘consistent with inflicted injury’’.

Shayal Upashna Sami, 21, who was aged 18 and five months pregnant at the time of Aaliyah’s death, denies her murder, saying she believed the 1-year-old was hurt falling from her couch.

The girl suffered two skull fractures, bleeding in the cranial cavity and severe damage to her eyes, as well as bruising to both sides of her face, an ear and her forehead.

Dr Zainah Alsagoff, a consultant ophthalmic surgeon at Christchurch Hospital, said she found ‘‘extensive’’ haemorrhaging when she examined the baby’s eyes as she lay dying in intensive care.

The doctor said blot and flameshaped haemorrhages across large parts of the retinas of both Aaliyah’s eyes, as well as subretinal bleeds, were ‘‘consistent with non-accidental injury’’.

She said: ‘‘The nature of the findings of the eye – it being symmetrical, the haemorrhages and the pattern – even though I have not seen many in a patient, it is quite classical to describe a nonaccidental injury.’’

An impact of a ‘‘very high velocity’’ would have been required for such injuries to be accidental, Alsagoff said, adding that Aaliyah’s eye injuries were consistent with being shaken.

Defence lawyer Jonathan Eaton QC suggested there was wide dispute in the international medical community around diagnoses of shaken babies.

Aaliyah, a Fijian-Indian girl, was unconscious and comatose when doctors examined her on the morning of January 7.

Dr Thomas Townend, a paediatrician who treated her, said scans showed she had a fractured skull, a subdural hematoma and swelling to her brain.

The injuries were consistent with a ‘‘severe acute impact head trauma’’. An MRI scan found there was no blood flowing in or out of her brain and, with her parents Dev Chand and Anjani Lata by her side, her life support was switched off at 8.20pm.

A colleague told Townend that Aaliyah’s head injuries were not consistent with falling from Sami’s couch, the court heard.

He told jurors the nature of the bruising on her cheeks was ‘‘more consistent with inflicted injury, rather than accidental’’.

‘‘The facial bruising is not consistent with a fall from a couch.’’

Townend said it was ‘‘extremely unlikely’’ bruises to Aaliyah’s face could have been caused from a ventilation mask, though he conceded some could have occurred when Sami tried to resuscitate the girl as she took her to hospital.

It was hard to see how Aaliyah hitting her head on a wooden chair could have caused bruising to both sides of her face, he said.

Prosecutor Mark Zarifeh earlier told the court Sami caused the injuries at her home in Worcester St, Linwood, in a ‘‘moment of anger or frustration’’.

The trial, which began on Monday before Justice Rachel Dunningham, is expected to last two weeks.