DETROIT — A 10-month-old girl suffered a skull fracture on Mother’s Day when a headstone at a Detroit cemetery fell on top of her.
Jessica McFadden and her family went to Gethsemane Cemetery to pay respects to her grandmother on Sunday, WJBK-TV reported. When McFadden placed her daughter, Melani McFadden, in front of the headstone for a photo opportunity, the stone fell on the child, according to the television station.
“That headstone was not properly placed,” Jessica McFadden told WJBK. “I didn’t know if my baby was alive under there. I couldn’t hear my baby, I couldn’t see my baby.”
Baby suffers skull fracture after headstone falls on her at Detroit cemetery https://t.co/wugOjLNiVv pic.twitter.com/18LiAM6sox
— FOX 2 Detroit (@FOX2News) May 12, 2022
It was clear that when family members removed the stone, the child was hurt.
“She had a huge knot, and it was bleeding on the back of her head, and at that moment my daughter started vomiting, and she went out,” Jessica McFadden told the television station.
Melani McFadden was taken to an area hospital, where she was diagnosed with a fractured skull, MLive.com reported.
“I’m just really angry, I guess you could say,” the child’s father, Jeremy McFadden, told WJBK. “I’m really angry that this happened to my baby, and I wasn’t there to do anything about it.”
City officials said in a statement that headstones are placed in cemeteries by third-party contractors hired by families, MLive reported. City officials added that there was no record of concerns about the headstone and that it had not previously fallen, causing it to be reset.
“The city extends its well wishes to the family and hopes for a full recovery for the child,” city officials said in the statement.
Attorney Jonathan Marko is representing the McFadden family, WJBK reported.
“It’s not like lightning struck and this tombstone suddenly fell down. This tombstone was a disaster waiting to happen,” Marko told the television station. “We have preliminary information that because of the staffing shortages they had to cut back on what they were able to do, but this is what happens when we cut funding and put a bare-bones operation in our public services -- they don’t operate the way that they’re supposed to operate.”
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