New and healing injuries to Maelynn Myers' bones, brain, eyes and kidney were so severe, they would have been caused by the amount of force created in a car crash.
Because of their severity, the 19-month-old Sioux City girl's injuries were not consistent with an accident or fall, a pediatrician specializing in child abuse cases testified Friday.
"This was not falling off a bed or a changing table or something so minor," said Dr. Suzanne Haney, a physician at Children's Hospital in Omaha who examined Maelynn three times and reviewed several scans and x-rays taken of the little girl, who died Aug. 25, 2018, after three days there.
Haney's testimony during the second day of evidence in Tayvon Davis' murder trial detailed a long list of injuries doctors found after the girl was transferred to Omaha after being taken to the MercyOne Siouxland Medical Center three days earlier on Aug. 22. Unresponsive upon her arrival in the Sioux City emergency room, she never regained consciousness before her death.
Tests and scans confirmed hemorrhaging that surrounded Maelynn's brain with blood, brain swelling, a left kidney with no blood supply, a recent fracture in the tibia in her right leg, hemorrhages in both eyes and a partially detached retina in the left eye and healing fractures to at least two vertebrae and in the bone in her upper right arm. Haney also observed bruises on her forehead, back and buttocks.
It's hard to say how old the healing fractures were, Haney said, but the brain injury would have occurred at or very near the time Maelynn became unresponsive and was rushed to the hospital by her grandmother, Jaime Myers, and Davis, the live-in boyfriend of the girl's mother.
Davis, 26, of Sioux City, is charged in Woodbury County District Court with first-degree murder, child endangerment resulting in the death of a child and multiple acts of child endangerment. He is accused of injuring Maelynn numerous times from July 1, 2018, until Aug. 22, 2018. Her death was ruled a homicide caused by blunt-force injuries.
Haney diagnosed the toddler with abusive head trauma and suspected her injuries were abusive in nature because she had no history of treatment for injuries caused by falls or other trauma. She also had been fairly healthy from about 6 months of age, when she had surgery on her skull, until approximately three weeks before her death, when her mother became concerned that she was vomiting often, not eating well and had stopped walking. The girl was diagnosed with ear infections and hand, foot and mouth disease earlier in August.
After her spinal injury, Maelynn would have been in pain and had problems walking, Haney said. The fracture in the right arm would explain the pain that prompted an August visit to a doctor, who did not order x-rays and diagnosed Maelynn with nursemaid's elbow, an injury common in toddlers in which the elbow slips out of place.
"Did you feel like the injuries she sustained were consistent with an accident?" Assistant Woodbury County Attorney Kristine Timmins asked Haney.
"No," Haney said, but her bruises possibly could have been caused by a fall.
Davis told investigators he dropped Maelynn while giving her a bath. Myers testified Thursday that when Davis brought the girl to her apartment, he told her he'd been giving her a bath to try to calm her because she'd been fussy all morning and she began having trouble breathing. A MercyOne nurse testified that at the hospital, Davis told her the girl went limp after he took her out of the bathtub. Myers and the nurse both said Davis did not mention dropping her.
On Friday, Dr. Joseph Liewer, a MercyOne emergency room physician who treated Maelynn, also testified that when meeting with Davis to find out what had happened, there was no mention that Maelynn had been dropped.
In her opening statement to jurors, public defender Jennifer Solberg said Davis had attempted CPR on Maelynn, and Myers testified that while on the way to the hospital she told him to push on the girl's chest to get air flowing in her body. Myers said she didn't know if Davis ever did so. Medical personnel at MercyOne performed CPR on the girl and restored her pulse.
Both Liewer and Haney testified that CPR would not have caused Maelynn's injuries, and neither could find any other explanation, besides trauma, for them.
