Trial continues for Lubbock man accused of forcing pacifier down infant's throat
Lubbock County prosecutors on Tuesday told jurors the evidence will show them that a 20-year-old man forced a pacifier down the throat of a 6-month-old girl four years ago.
The jurors were seated Monday afternoon in the 140th District Court, after which Rico Martinez pleaded not guilty to a count of injury to a child, a first-degree felony that carries a punishment of five years to life in prison.
Martinez, who is being held at the Lubbock County Detention Center, was arrested Aug. 15, 2019, as a result of a Lubbock police investigation that began a year before when a surgeon at Covenant Children's removed a pacifier lodged firmly down a 6-month-old girl's throat.
Defense attorney Daniel Warrick told jurors in his opening statement that Martinez, who was 17 at the time, did everything he could do to save the girl and did not cause the pacifier to be lodged in her throat.
The girl was taken to the emergency room on Aug. 19, 2018 after emergency responders rushed to an apartment in the 4600 block of 71st Street where the girl was choking.
A firefighter and two paramedics who responded to the scene told jurors they were unable to dislodge the pacifier from the girl's throat but were able to loosen the object to slightly improve her breathing.
Cassandra Trotter, a UMC paramedic who responded to the scene, told jurors that as they rushed to the hospital, the girl began to show signs of fatigue, which could have resulted in cardiac arrest.
The emergency responders said they'd encountered choking situations in the past, but nothing that involved children swallowing pacifiers.
The girl's mother told jurors that she and Martinez had been dating for a few weeks and he was living with her.
She said the night before the 911 call she and Martinez got into a fight because he brought his friends to their apartment to do drugs while she was at work.
They got into another heated argument the next day but they calmed down. She said she left her daughter with Martinez to go to her grandparents' home.
She said Martinez called her about five minutes later, saying her daughter was choking on her pacifier and coughing up blood.
She said she told Martinez to call 911 then asked her cousin and another friend to meet her at her apartment.
She told jurors that Martinez gave her different versions of how the pacifier ended up in the girl's throat.
She said in one version he told her that the girl was teething on the pacifier sideways when she took a breath and sucked the object into her throat.
She said in the last version he told her he was holding the baby who had the pacifier in her mouth and he badly needed to use the restroom. She said he told her he dropped the child onto her crib and when he returned she was choking on the pacifier.
She said she'd never seen her daughter chew the pacifier the way Martinez described and her daughter never choked on her pacifier since. She said she also had two children in the last two years and neither child have choked on their pacifiers.
She told jurors she initially did not believe Martinez could hurt her child, but her feelings changed when she asked doctors if Martinez's explanations were possible.
"I had to see her fight for her life," she said. "The doctor told me that there was no way this was an accident. This was forced."
Jurors also heard from doctors who treated the girl, who said it was nearly impossible for the girl to have swallowed the pacifier by herself.
Dr. Jane Goldthorn, a pediatric surgeon for 45 years, told jurors she was able to remove the pacifier from the girl's throat after she was sedated.
She said she choking situations like the child experienced are rare and she believed it could not have happened without someone forcing the pacifier down the child's throat.
"I could see it in the back of her throat. It was fairly far," she said.
She said it was unlikely the girl could have swallowed the pacifier.
"I don't think this child could have pushed this down or even gotten it into her mouth all the way," she said.
The trial will continue through this week.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Trial for Lubbock man accused of forcing pacifier down infant's throat
