Baby home from hospital after suffering injuries

Friday, Jan. 7, 2005 | 11:15 a.m.

The 3-month-old Henderson infant who suffered acute bleeding in his brain as a result of allegedly being shaken by his nanny returned home Thursday night.

Ryan Kuckler also suffered a skull fracture on the side of his head opposite the bleeding, his mother, Paula Yakubik, said.

Ryan had been airlifted to University Medical Center on Dec. 28 and had spent the past week in pediatric intensive care.

"He seems better than we expected," said Jason Kuckler, Ryan's father.

However, the baby faces extensive tests by eye and nerve specialists as they track his development after a seizure, Paula Yakubik said.

Ryan's 18-month-old sister, Ashley, was not harmed.

Ryan's grandmother, Charlotte Yakubik, delivered the baby's anti-seizure medicine to the family's southeast valley home Thursday night.

Asked what she would do in the future for child care, Yakubik replied, "I have no idea."

The family is having a nannie-cam video camera installed in their home this week.

Paula Yakubik may also turn an extra room at her public relations office into a child care area.

"Then I'll hire two nannies," Yakubik said. "One nanny to watch the other."

Bethany Joyce Ford, 24, the nanny who is charged with abusing Ryan, told police that she had twice shaken and struck the child because the baby had frustrated her with his crying, according to the police report.

The parents were out of town at the time.

Ford allegedly told a Henderson Police detective on Dec. 28 that "Ryan is a colicky baby and that she sometimes has a hard time quieting him down. Today he had been crying for approximately one hour and Ford advised that she became frustrated. She demonstrated to me how she was bouncing him around and then held him out in front of her, under the arms and around his rib cage area and shook him, stating, 'Ryan, you have to be quiet.' "

The detective said that Ford was shaking her arms back and forth "in a violent manner as she demonstrated this to me."

Ford was booked into Henderson Detention Center on two felony counts of child abuse, then was freed on $6,000 bail, Henderson Police spokesman Keith Paul said.

"I kept asking her what happened," Yakubik said, recalling when she rushed to the house on Dec. 28 and found paramedics trying to resuscitate a blue baby.

"She kept saying the baby was crying and then turned blue. She was still denying anything," Yakubik said.

Paula Yakubik said she never suspected that she would have any trouble with Ford. "In front of us, she always treated him properly with care," she said.

Ford lived with the family, ate dinner with them and shared Christmas with them.

Yakubik said she hired Ford in February through Nannies and Housekeepers USA, a placement agency. She paid $1,500 after a screening and background check.

Lexy Capp, the owner of Nannies and Housekeepers USA, emphasized that Ford was not directly employed by her company, but confirmed that the company had referred Ford to the family.

Yakubik said she checked a number of references that Ford gave, and nothing had been amiss.