Officials: N.J. nurse repeatedly stabbed autistic boy with needle

A South Jersey nurse has been accused of repeatedly stabbing a 10-year-old autistic boy with a hypodermic needle as punishment while he was in inpatient psychiatric care, prosecutors said, calling her actions "barbaric."

Naomi Derrick, a registered nurse in Atlantic County, has agreed to voluntarily surrender her license as a result of the allegations of incidents, many of which were captured on video, according to the New Jersey Attorney General's Office.

The Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office is criminally investigating the case in the meantime.

Derrick was a nurse in the inpatient psychiatric unit of the AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center's City Campus and the victim was under her care, the Attorney General's Office said in a statement.

In incidents that were captured on a camera left in the victim's room or witnessed by other AtlantiCare employees, Derrick threatened the child that if he didn't behave, she would "give him the needle," according to prosecutors.

In one day alone, Derrick allegedly stabbed the boy six times with an unsheathed hypodermic needle - sometimes repeatedly - in an arm, thigh, knee, foot, and hand. Each time she did so, she drew blood, the Attorney General's Office said.

On other occasions, Derrick bent the child's finger back so far it cracked, stepped on his bare foot with her shoe, and forced him to fall by moving the chair he was holding on for balance, prosecutors said.

"A developmentally disabled child, confined to a psychiatric ward under the supervision of nurses, is as vulnerable a patient as you can find," said acting Attorney General Christopher Porrino. "Instead of caring for this boy and protecting him from harm, as was her duty, Naomi Derrick allegedly used her position of authority to bully and assault him. There is no place in the health-care profession for this kind of barbaric behavior."

Derrick is barred from practicing nursing until any criminal charges that may be filed against her are resolved, according to prosecutors.