A woman who performed CPR on a Tauranga toddler who suffered a traumatic brain injury says she recalls the man accused of murdering the child saying "she's okay, she's fine".
This was despite the child
A woman who performed CPR on a Tauranga toddler who suffered a traumatic brain injury says she recalls the man accused of murdering the child saying "she's okay, she's fine".
This was despite the child being unresponsive and gasping for air and St John officers describing the toddler's condition as "critical" when they arrived at her home.
A St John intensive paramedic has told a jury that murder accused Adrian Colin Clancy was "being evasive" when asked about what happened to cause the child's critical brain injury.
Clancy, who is on trial in the Rotorua High Court, has denied murdering 17-month-old Sadie-Leigh Gardner in Tauranga on March 27, 2019.
His jury trial began on March 15.
The Crown had alleged that Clancy violently assaulted Sadie-Leigh while in his sole care.
She was transferred to Starship Hospital and died two days later on March 29, 2019.
Clancy's defence lawyer Kerry Tustin argued at the start of the trial there was no Crown evidence that linked her client to the alleged assault of the toddler.
A CT scan revealed she suffered a significant bilateral brain bleed and a fracture to the right side of her skull just below the right ear, the Crown earlier said.
Further tests confirmed the toddler also had significant retinal haemorrhages to both eyes and was unable to see, Crown prosecutor Richard Jenson said.
As well as the fractured skull, the post-mortem also revealed brain swelling and bleeding and a fracture to her right shoulder, the court heard.
The Crown alleges that Clancy had become frustrated or angry for some reason while left alone with the toddler and vented his emotions violently on the child.
It is further alleged that after the assault, Clancy realised the child was unconscious and not breathing, he sought help from a woman at a neighbouring unit who had called 111.
Another neighbour, who gave evidence yesterday, said she performed CPR on the toddler until ambulance staff arrived and took over.
The witness said Clancy had told them that the deceased was "not breathing and she was choking" and he was blowing on Sadie-Leigh's face like he was trying to wake her up.
Sadie-Leigh was "limp and her eyes were shut" and she immediately told Clancy to place the child on the floor in her neighbour's lounge.
The woman said when Sadie-Leigh took a sudden gasp of breath, Clancy said, "See, she's choking".
She told the other neighbour to call 111 and then began chest impressions under the direction of a 111 staff member, she said.
"I was freaking out and scared as I didn't want to hurt the baby."
The woman said while doing so she noticed there was fresh blood around Sadie-Leigh's cheeks and mouth, and could taste the blood when she blew into the child's mouth.
Clancy seemed to be "freaking out" at first but then he returned to his unit for a few minutes while they were still working on the toddler, the witness said.
She said the defendant returned a short time later with some wet wipes and started wiping all the blood off Sadie-Leigh's face.
The witness also said when she spoke to Clancy again at that point he appeared calm and "not emotional at all".
Clancy spent a lot of time on his phone and at one stage she heard him say to someone "she's [Sadie-Leigh] okay, she's fine" and assumed he was talking to her mother.
Clancy's lawyer Kerry Tustin put to the witness that an ambulance officer had made a statement to the police that a man was performing CPR on the toddler on his arrival.
The woman said she was still performing CPR on Sadie-Leigh when the ambulance staff arrived, so that was not correct.
"He [Clancy] wasn't doing CPR...I know what I did and I'm clearly a woman."
Under cross-examination, the woman confirmed she had not heard any banging or loud thuds or coughing from the neighbouring address before Clancy arrived with the child.
Four St John Ambulance staff, who responded to the 111 call, also gave evidence yesterday.
Gillian Gates, an intensive paramedic at St John Ambulance at the time, said she tried repeatedly to establish the clinical history of what happened to Sadie-Leigh from Clancy.
"I felt like he wouldn't answer some of my questions and I had to ask them over and over."
During cross-examination by Tustin, Gates said she believed Clancy was "being evasive" when asked what caused the little girl's critical injuries.
At one stage she heard Clancy, who appeared calm during the talking to someone, possibly on his phone, saying "she's fine", but more in a "blase way".
St John paramedic Todd Lahmert said Sadie-Leigh was breathing when he arrived at the house but only about "two to three breaths per minute".
She was "unresponsive, quite pale in colour and had a very slow heartbeat", he said.
Lahmert said he asked the man in the lounge if the toddler had been involved in a recent fall or she had fallen over and hit her head because there were no restrictions in her chest.
The man (now identified as Clancy) replied the child had been unwell, and that she was not "observed for about 30 minutes" before he found her in this condition, he said.
Lahmert said the child's condition was critical and she presented like someone who had been involved in a traumatic incident such as was seen in motor vehicle accidents.
The child, who was "quite floppy" had to be manually ventilated and a couple of times parts of her body became quite rigid consistent with a traumatic brain injury, he said.
During the journey to the hospital, Clancy "pretty much" spent the whole time on his cellphone and he did not ask any questions of the ambulance staff, Lahmert said.
The trial continues today.
Emergency services were alerted to the crash involving a car and truck, at about midday.