A Kent County grand jury warrant has charged former Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital nurse Kieran L. Ansley, 43, with four counts of child abuse after a four-month-old girl in his overnight care in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit was found with multiple broken bones and bruising that weren’t there twelve hours earlier. Ansley was fired once the hospital learned of the allegations.
What the mother found
The infant, born at 23 weeks and weighing one pound, one ounce, had spent months in the Grand Rapids hospital’s NICU. Court records say her mother left the unit the evening of April 2, 2026, and returned around 6:30 the next morning to find her daughter’s tongue “blue and almost black,” along with bruising that hadn’t been there the night before. As she approached the room, records say, Ansley got up from his seat and jogged to intercept her, telling her the baby had “slept through the night.”
A full skeletal survey ordered afterward found multiple fractures, including broken leg bones, along with bruising on the infant’s hands, arms, thigh, buttocks and abdomen. Physicians who reviewed the findings diagnosed pediatric physical abuse. Hospital logs cited in the warrant show Ansley accounted for 27 of the 32 documented visits to the child’s room overnight.
What the charges say
The warrant, authorized in early September, charges Ansley with two counts of second-degree child abuse — 10-year felonies — and two misdemeanor counts of fourth-degree child abuse. He appeared before Grand Rapids District Court Judge Kellen Dotson on Sept. 22 with defense attorney Damian Nunzio and remains free on bond, wearing an electronic tether. A further hearing is set for early November. Ansley has not entered a plea, and as with anyone charged but not convicted, he is presumed innocent unless and until a court finds otherwise.
Nunzio told reporters his client has cooperated with investigators throughout and disputes the allegations. “My client has had many years working with ICU patients, and he’s a very good person,” Nunzio said, adding that the defense plans its own investigation and is “confident that our investigation will let the truth come to light.” Corewell Health, which operates Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital, has not issued a public statement on Ansley’s employment status or the case beyond confirming he no longer works there.
A NICU assignment is one of the loneliest overnight shifts in the building — one nurse, a fragile patient who can’t report anything, and hours where the only record of what happened is whatever gets charted and whatever the cameras or door logs happen to catch. That’s exactly why the visit logs matter here: they’re what let investigators reconstruct a night nobody else witnessed. If your unit doesn’t already have a clear two-person rule for high-acuity overnight care, or a way to cross-check who was actually in a room and when, this is the kind of case that should make leadership take the question seriously — not just for liability, but because it protects the nurses doing the job honestly, too.