Odd Situation......

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
My great niece (husband's side) is a great girl. She and Nichole are very alike, always have been, except that S never had any of the difficult child junk as she's a easy child. S and Nichole are nearly the same age too. A very family oriented girl with tons of maternal instinct and good mothering skills.

S has been with her husband for quite a while......at least before JR was born. (he's a bit older than Brandon) Now at first the extended family was not very thrilled with S's choice in a mate. He's sort of from the wrong side of the tracks and has a history of violent behavior, not extreme but he does have a temper. What won them over was his love and adoration of S, which is clearly obvious. First time I met him was when we were cleaning out mother in law's house for her to move to the assisted living. Now my kids have brought home so many difficult children that I might pick up on it.....but unless I have reason, I don't pay much attention to it.

At one point in the day.......S's husband and the baby were off in the livingroom while everyone else were occupied in the kitchen and diningroom areas. Now it has an open doorway. I just happened to be taking a break and the chair I was sitting in had clear view of the livingroom. I watched him punch the baby twice and make him cry, tell him to shut up and stop whining.....and then he did it again. Picked him up and took him to S and said he was fussy and needed a nap. I was pretty much stunned speechless. Later in the day he would punch him (not super hard but hard enough to hurt a baby, Jr was just walking) when people weren't looking, then prod S telling her the baby was tired and they needed to go.

As far as I know I'm the only one who saw it. They left shortly and we were too busy to really feel sister in law out about the guy.........but I did ask if she liked him. Which is when she said he was growing on the family because of his obvious devotion to S. But that no, at first she hated his guts........he was ill mannered, hot tempered, and lazy (as in more excuses than jobs). I couldn't think of a way to approach what I'd seen........so I let it drop. I probably shouldn't have, but I did.

Now the other day on her fb page, S posted that JR broke his humerus bone in 2 places. That threw up a major red flag. It is extremely difficult for children that age to break bones, they tend to bend, not break. It does happen, though, and it depends on how they fell ect. So I came right out and asked her what happened. She said that JR decided to play superman and stand on a big plastic ball and fell. JR is about 4 yrs old now. While I can see him trying that......he's adventurous........the odds of him breaking his humerus (upper arm bone) from such a short fall is very slim. I can see if it was the lower arm because he might be able to twist it in such a way to do it......... But the upper bone is much harder to break, and to break it in 2 places......omg!

I find her explanation highly suspicious. I have a sneaky suspicion Dad might have lost his temper. I saw enough of such "odd" injuries working peds back before I had kids of my own.....every one of them were abuse cases. Every one of them were attached to stupid lame excuses.

I'm not going to say anything to the family because honestly, I don't feel in the position to do so. We are just not that close. S has a good mom and an even better grandma who try to keep close tabs on her. It worries me though because S lives here while the rest of her entire family moved to Virginia. She and her husband were planning to join them I saw recently.....but I'm thinking that plan got nixed because I see no more about it. But I did pose my question to her right under her post about the break, hoping it would send up a red flag to her Mom/grandma who might ask her about it in private. S grew up in a DV situation in her early years. Her dad came back from the war a total stranger......a diagnosis of schizo and a violent man. Her mom finally left him when S was about 5-6 yrs old. I'm not sure if S would admit to DV. The only thing she and Nichole are not alike in.......Nichole won't put up with certain things, S is more timid.

I'm hoping I'm wrong. And I hope her mom and grandma are talking to her about this. Both are very smart, on top of it sort of women. But I've decided it's hard to see this junk even when you're extended family.:sigh:
 

buddy

New Member
Oh gosh, how awful. Wish she would have said who was home when it happened (not that she couldn't lie anyway). Even if you do say something, it is your word against hers. What he did to the baby though??? She may not even know. Still she must know he is dangerous. So hard for people to get out of that, which I can't relate to at all. I broke up with my fiance when he got verbally borderline abusive, not even directly awful. Just too bossy and demanding to me on the phone etc. I wont live with that in a partner. He sounds scary. I think some of the most dangerous people are the ones who show a ton of affection and adoration to wrap everyone up into thinking they are great guys, and to emotionally manipulate their S.O. Sorry you even had to become aware. I wish there was a way you could directly clue someone in. Would an anonymous call to cps be possible?
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
I'd consider cps, but we're distant enough I don't know her address. We don't visit much, never have. husband was not "close" to his bro, and that sort of filtered down to the rest of bro's family. We've gotten much closer with mother in law's and husband's deaths......but not enough I feel comfortable opening this can of worms.
 

keista

New Member
I'd consider cps, but we're distant enough I don't know her address. We don't visit much, never have. husband was not "close" to his bro, and that sort of filtered down to the rest of bro's family. We've gotten much closer with mother in law's and husband's deaths......but not enough I feel comfortable opening this can of worms.
Do you at least know what hospital they took him to? doctors are supposed to report such breaks to cps - anthing that is unlikeyl to have happened via parent's story. Unfortunately this would only yield the cursory investigation and they are done. in my opinion they need to know what you witnessed.
 

SuZir

Well-Known Member
What kind of standard practises you have for suspected abuse cases in your hospital? Here broken humerus bone on child is basically automatic abuse suspect if there is no obvious reason (car crash etc.) How likely it is that the hospital that treated the kid would have started investigations/alarmed cps? If you suspect that has not happened, I would call cps. It is just too suspicious situation and could end very badly. It really is difficult to break kids bone. Of course it is possible that kid hit the table or something really badly while falling, but the fall to the floor wouldn't easily break upper arm. Wrist maybe or collarbone but not upper arm.
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
Lisa... As you know I've had some horrible dealings with CPS... But...

Anonymous call, with S's and husband's and the baby's names, you're not sure where they live BUT you saw X and then she posted Y on facebook. CPS may already be involved. But that child cannot defend himself and S may not have seen. Or, S is timid as you say. But - anonymous.
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Well, normally..........I'd say our local hospital is pretty lame. And it is. The hospital easy child worked at used to be good until the county sold it, now it's no better than ours because all the decent staff (or vast majority of them) left.

I have no clue if she'd have taken him to our in town hospital or to the hospital easy child worked at. Last I heard they lived in a small town in between the two counties. Although, honestly........they could've made the move to Virginia and she just never got around to changing her location on her fb page. Dunno.

If she went to either of the local hospitals..........well, we'll just say abuse is common around here, they'll have reported it & cps would investigate. Whether or not they'd actually DO anything, is another matter. That, you just never know.

But I know both hospitals would report it due to where the break is and her story. It doesn't add up. Maybe he fell into something else.......but if she didn't include that in what she told me, then she probably didn't include it in what she told them, and they have no choice but to report. So I've no doubt cps has been contacted. I ran into similar situations while doing clinicals in the ER. Heck, over heard one while husband was in the ER during his heart attack.

S's mom is a bright cookie, who has lived it before. Her eldest popped up with a really bad break to the leg about the same age under odd circumstances.........if you get my drift.......shortly after her dad came back from the war. It took 2 more years for S's mom to leave for good. I'm certain it threw up a red flag for her too.

It's just tough to watch this stuff from the sidelines with people you care about and know there just isn't a whole lot you can do about it. I've had too much experience with our cps. No address, I dunno which hospital........heck, I can't even be certain she's in the area. They'd blow it off or hang up on me.

I've had to block another great nieces posts (same side of the family, nephews daughter) because I can no longer watch her self destruct. ugh
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
This is sad. I had to explain myself six ways from Sunday when I took Cory with me to social services after he had surgery and had his cast on. They kept asking me how he broke his arm. He didnt break his arm, he had surgery on it!
 

lmf64

New Member
I tried to respond to this before, but the board must not like Google Chrome. Anyway, don't jump on the child abuse idea yet. I know he's young and it doesn't seem as if he fell very far, but it can happen. A few years ago I was playing peak a boo with the neighbors little boy (he was like 3 at the time). I was at my house and he was in their house (windows lined up and I was on the computer so staring out the window LOL). Anyway, he was sitting on the arm of the couch and leaning over a little to peak at me. He fell from there and broke his humorous in three places, requiring pins and plates and a 5 hour surgery. I know he fell without any help, I saw it happen and had to give a statement to child protection about the injury and the way it happened.
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
Young children can break those bones but it's very unusual and it takes a lot of force or them hitting it just right. And the ER staff will ALWAYS be suspicious! We had just moved here to Tennessee right before my sons third birthday. We had a little hill on one side of our back yard and it had rocks sticking out of it like stairsteps and as many times as we had told him not to climb on it, of course he did. And then he fell! He ended up with a nasty splintered fracture of his left leg, right below his hip joint. The doctors in our little local hospital made all kinds of snide remarks about how hard it would be for that bone to fracture like that in a kid his age, didn't outright accuse us but they insinuated. He had to be transported to a larger hospital and the orthopedic doctor questioned us about how it happened. Then he asked my son what he was doing when he broke his leg ... he grinned and told the doctor he was deer hunting! And after that, nobody ever questioned us about it again!
 

Malika

Well-Known Member
What is the likelihood that this man, whom you saw punching his baby, has in the meantime seen the error of his ways and learnt to control his abusive violence? Not great, I would have thought, without consciousness and therapy.
I don't know, Hound Dog. Personally I always feel I have a responsibility to take action in these situations - is that wrong or right? I do see that intervening too directly or without wisdom can just make a situation much worse. But here is this kid who is probably being beaten up brutally by his father... horrific. Is there a way you can alert services without being named or involved?
 

skeeter

New Member
Hound dog - don't know if you are aware of the story back in March of the 2 year old that was beaten to death here (kicked so hard his aorta separated from his heart) and the boyfriend is charged with capital murder. I know the mother's family (and the family blames the mother just as much for letting the boyfriend back into her life). The hardest part of the whole thing is so far they've kept the killing from the great grandmother, who is mentally sound at age 92, but has had a stroke and doesn't need ANY stress in her life. This is a family I grew up with, went to school with, played with, went around as a teen with, and send and receive birthday and Christmas cards from.
So I'm probably not the best one to ask at this time, but I say try and report it any way you can. If it's not an issue, it's not an issue. If it is, you may just save a child's life.
 
Top