Mom blames slip in bath for baby’s girl’s death

HENRIËTTE GELDENHUYS

HENRIËTTE GELDENHUYS

THE mother of 21-month-old adopted baby Tammy Herman, the victim of who died a month ago following what has been described as one of the country’s worst child abuse cases, has made a sworn statement that the adopted baby toddler was injured after slipping in a bath.

Little Tammy suffered 12 broken ribs, a bleeding liver and brain damage before dying in hospital a month ago.

SA Police Services Johannesburg Area Commissioner Oswald Reddy said a pathologist would visit the Herman home in Ridgeway, south of Johannesburg, to inspect the bath.

Police believe this could verify claims by doctors, social workers and a pathologist that Tammy was abused and that a fall in the bath could not explain her injuries.

“The investigation is at a very advanced stage,” said Reddy., pointing out it was being conducted by on a high level with a team of specialists led by the Johannesburg area head of detectives.

The team includes a pathologist, a state prosecutor and a murder squad detective, who has replaced an investigating officer from the child protection unit.

He said the case was “It’s really tragic. “I love children and I’m really very disappointed and upset that something like that can happen to an innocent child.

“But we can’t make emotional decisions. When we make an arrest, we want a watertight case,” Reddy said.

A paediatrician at Garden City Clinic, paediatrician Dr Lucia Singh, who last saw Tammy when she treated her for tonsillitis in August last year, said she had . when the girl was 16 months old. not She detected any no signs of child abuse at the time. , but X-rays were not done to test for it

“Although I didn’t see bruises, the child was dark-skinned, so it would have been easy to miss.” she said.

A year before Tammy’s death, Dr Singh had handled a similar case, when she had treated a three-month-old baby boy who was rushed to hospital by his biological parents.

“Just as in this case, it was child abuse. If we’d left the three-month-old in the care of his parents, he would have died, guaranteed. He had multiple healed and healing fractures, 14 altogether, and blood on the brain and in the eyes.”

Singh said the three-month-old’s injuries in the two cases and Tammy’s were similar, although Tammy’s were fatal. “this case is worse because the child died.

“She was bruised and with multiple fractures and was having fits when she arrived [in hospital]. She was already critical then and was only kept alive on the ventilator. She was so unstable on admission they couldn’t do a brain scan. She bled to death,” she said.

Dr Singh said children often slipped and fell but were never that seriously injured.

Meanwhile, Tammy’s father, Donovan Herman, has told the Sunday Times that he would give anything to have her alive. his baby daughter back.THE FATHER of 21-month-old adopted baby Tammy Herman, who was killed a month ago, said he would give anything to have his daughter back. The child died from 12 broken ribs, a bleeding liver and brain damage in what has been described as one of the worst child abuse cases in South Africa.

Speaking out for the first time about the death of the baby girl he and his wife, Zaibonisa, had adopted when she was just four months old, he said: adopted with high hopes, together with his wife, Zaibonisa, when she was four months old, Donovan Herman said: “If anyone is upset, I think I am the most. Because I well and truly loved my daughter and I would give anything to have her back ... I would ... I would.”

Herman , a manager at a reassurance company in Parktown, was interviewed as the investigation began to focus on his wife. He said: Interviewed while the police investigation turned to his wife, Zaibonisa, the child’s father, a manager at a reassurance company in Parktown, said: “We’re waiting for the cops to come back with some sort of answer ... so that I can try and make sense of all of this ... As I’m sitting here, I’m being totally honest. I am being guided by what the police are SAPS is saying. Until the investigation has been finalised, I am just as much in the dark.”

He was Confronted with the allegation that he had had an affair with another woman, with whom he had a biological child, Herman . He did not deny it, but said: replied: “I’ve got nothing to comment and nothing to add until the police investigation has been completed.”

His wife, who works in a bank near Crown Mines, had claimed in a sworn statement that Tammy had slipped and fallen in the bath.

The baby was having seizures and her body was bruised when her parents brought her to the Garden City Clinic in Mayfair on Wednesday night, January 18. She survived three nights on a ventilator in the children’s intensive care before she died at 7am o clock on Saturday, morning, January 21. Shocked doctors discovered some of her injuries were between three to five weeks old.

Meanwhile, Zaibonisa. who works at a bank near Crown Mines, has claimed in a sworn statement that the girl had slipped and fallen in the bath.