- November 19, 2024
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Deputies arrested a Palm Coast man Thursday morning after Florida Hospital Flagler staff reported he'd brought in a 2-year-old girl with bruising “from head to toe” and life-threatening internal injuries that required emergency surgery, according to a Flagler County Sheriff’s Office news release.
The little girl was unresponsive when Stanley Wykretowicz — 38 and now charged with aggravated child abuse and with neglect of a child causing great bodily harm — brought her to Florida Hospital Flagler Feb. 24.
The little girl's body temperature when she arrived was 91.2 degrees, according to the arrest report.
She was airlifted to Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville for abdominal surgery, which revealed a laceration to her colon, according to the report, and remained in critical but stable condition Thursday morning.
The surgeon told detectives the injury "appeared to be two to three days old" and that "this type of injury could only only be caused by blunt force trauma," according to the report.
Wykretowicz was the last person with the child, and was her sole caregiver, he told detectives.
He told hospital staff she'd been vomiting for two days, according to the report. When he cleaned her up Monday morning after she vomited her breakfast, he said, he noticed that she got a blank look on her face and that her body started to get cold, according to the report.
So he drove her to Florida Hospital Flagler. Doctors inserted a endotracheal tube down her throat so she could breathe.
Wykretowicz told investigators he could explain the little girl's numerous injuries.
He said she bruises easily, and that she fell in the bathtub Sunday and hit her head on the spout. The bruising covering her back and buttocks might have been caused when she fell on bath toys, he said, or when she fell trying to get out of the tub Monday.
And, he told detectives, he'd noticed that her abdomen looked bloated, and put a finger down her throat to try to get her to vomit. He had a bite mark on his finger, according to the arrest report.
He also said he leaves the little girl home alone while he takes his 13-year-old daughter to school in the mornings, according to the arrest report.
Hospital doctors and Department of Children and Families’ Child Protective Team medical staff told investigators the little girl's injuries were "not consistent with the explanation provided by Stanley."
Deputies arrested Wykretowicz at about 1 a.m. Thursday morning, according to the Sheriff's Office news release. He is being held at the Flagler County jail on $150,000 bond.
