Tot Ethan's brain injury 'could have been caused by a fist, hand or knee'

DOCTOR SAYS 'EVERYTHING WAS STACKED AGAINST' 2-YEAR-OLD'S SURVIVAL FOLLOWING 'IMPACT' TO HEAD

- By DAVID POWELL

A TWO-YEAR-OLD boy's brain injuries could have been caused by a “fist, a hand or a knee”, a court heard yesterday.

Ethan Ives-Griffiths sustained the fresh bleeding in addition to “weeks old” bleeding on his brain, a jury at Mold Crown Court was told.

Ethan collapsed at his grand-parents’ home in Kingsley Road, Garden City, Deeside, on August 14.

But an 18-minute delay before his grandmother, Kerry Ives, 46, rang for an ambulance would “probably” not have altered the outcome, paediatric neurosurgeon Dr Jayaratnam Jayamohan said.

Asked by prosecutor Caroline Rees KC what could have caused the injury that day, Dr Jayamohan said: “An impact; a physical contact.

"Either some object moving to hit the right side of Ethan’s head, or Ethan's head moving to hit an object.

“It could be a fist, a hand or a knee, or it could be an object that you pick up” or from Ethan being shaken, or both.

He said Ethan was left in a “consistent, comatose” state as a result of the injury to his head.

Ethan’s mercury level was “10 times [the] normal level” and “completely outside survivable”.

Dr Jayamohan told the court about an operation to try to remove fluid from Ethan's brain at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital.