Two Oklahoma parents face child neglect charges after cops say they did nothing to help their seriously burned infant daughter because they were too high to take her to the hospital.
Police say the 2-week-old daughter of Patrick Eddy, 25, and Candace Matthews, 26, was seriously burned when a teenage girl who was watching the child gave her a bath in a sink on December 27 and accidentally turned on the hot water without the cold.
According to an affidavit from the Ada Police Department, the teen and her mother called Eddy and told him what had happened.
The mother said the couple then came to her home and picked up the baby. That same day, the mother and her daughter told police that Matthews said she couldn’t take the baby to a hospital for treatment “because she was high on meth” the statement reads.
The following day, the mother went to the couple’s residence out of concern for the child and told police she found the girl crying with her diaper full of urine and feces and with a burn on her abdomen.
Beside the baby, she told police Matthew and Eddy were asleep in bed.
The mother woke up Matthews, who then agreed to let her take the baby to be treated, the affidavit reads.
Paramedics took the girl to a local hospital, where it was determined that she needed to be flown to a facility better equipped to treat her burns.
According to police, this all took place as Eddy and Matthews slept. They weren’t informed of the extent of their little girl’s injuries — or that she’d been flown to flown to Oklahoma City — until police arrived at their home.
Both Eddy and Matthews were placed under arrest and booked on child neglect charges. They remain at Pontotoc County Justice Center on $250,000 bond.
According to Ada News, the infant suffered first- and second-degree burns over 40 percent of her body. She will reportedly spend a month recovering in a Texas burn center.