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Mother of Shaken Baby Speaks Out
Father Of Injured Child Sentenced To Prison, Released Same Day
POSTED: 6:19 am CDT June 8, 2009
UPDATED: 10:23 am CDT June 8, 2009OMAHA, Neb. -- The mother of a child diagnosed with shaken baby syndrome spoke out just days after the man responsible for her son’s injuries was released from jail.
Morris Trotter was sentenced last Monday to one year in prison after pleading no contest to negligent child abuse and third-degree assault. He was released on the same day because he had already spent more than a year in jail.
Justin Trotter was injured on New Year’s Eve, 2008. That’s when his mother, Amanda Pijanowski, discovered a problem with her baby boy.
“He looked kind of funny. He looked kind of pale and I noticed there was something wrong. It was a mother’s instinct there was something wrong,” Pijanowski said. “So I started hollering his name. Tried to wake him up and we couldn’t wake him up. Me and Morris Trotter went to the emergency room later and we found out Justin was diagnosed with shaken baby syndrome.”
A year-and-a half later, the young mother said Justin is holding on to what little he has left.
“He can’t walk and he can’t talk. He just coos and that’s just basically all he does,” Pijanowski said.
Justin spent nearly two months in the hospital. Doctors performed surgery to reduce the swelling on his brain. It worked, but only to a certain point.
“When he gets older, he’s always going to be a baby,” Pijanowski said. “He’s never going to be the same ever again.”
Justin spends nearly every day in a 24-hour care facility, where he undergoes the beginning stages of rehabilitation.
His mother said the idea of any kind of a normal childhood is not an option.
“I’m heartbroken and completely destroyed inside,” she said.
Pijanowski and her parents don’t want to talk too much about the man who they say caused Justin’s problems. But they do say Morris Trotter deserves a harsher punishment.
Amanda’s father, Daniel Pijanowski said his daughter lost out on what could have been a lifetime of memories.
“She’ll never feel that feeling of putting him on the bus for his first day going to school,” he said. “She’ll never feel birthday parties with kids surrounding him. She’ll never know what it’s like when he goes to his first prom or gets his first car. It will never happen.”
Her family says Amanda is newly-engaged to another man she says will be a great father to her son.
