Parents break silence on baby attack
The parents of a baby boy burned after a stranger poured hot coffee on him in a random attack have pleaded for help to find the attacker.
Nine-month-old Luka has since undergone surgery at Queensland Children’s Hospital after sustaining serious burns to 60 per cent of his body including his face, neck, chest and arms after Tuesday’s attack.
“My baby boy didn’t deserve this, no one does. I wish he poured the hot coffee all over me and not my boy,” the baby’s mother posted to social media.
“Please if anyone has any CCTV footage around the Lincoln street / Regina street in stones corner please speak to police. This man needs to be found and charged.
“Thank you to all the lovely people at the park for pouring water on him and for the lady who took us to her apartment so we could get him in a cold shower asap.”
New images shared by Luka’s mum show the youngster wrapped in bandages and compression garments and holding a rattle as he continues to recover in hospital.
Police released new images on Thursday morning of a man they wish to speak to in relation to the assault.
Police said the man was aged between 30 and 40 years old, of an average build and with tanned skin. He was captured on CCTV wearing a black hat, glasses, a checkered button-up blue shirt and shorts.
A friend of the mother, Zara Mazza, became emotional on Wednesday night as she told The Project she was sitting down with her own son and looked up to see a man standing above her friend’s nine-month-old baby.
“This man was standing above him, behind him, and poured a Thermos of hot coffee over him. He just started screaming,” Ms Mazza said.
She told of how she tried to chase the man but he was “very fast”, and she tripped while attempting to keep up.
“Essentially all I could hear was his mum screaming that ‘it’s hot. it’s hot. It’s hot coffee’,” Ms Mazza said.
“So I ran back and as I ran back picked up my water bottle and dumped it over him,” she said.
“I removed him from his mum and we laid him down on the picnic rug and we peeled his clothes away, which revealed the peeling of his skin, his skin had started to blister.”
Bystanders rushed to help armed with filled water bottles to pour over the baby, before a trainee nurse offered up a shower at her nearby apartment so water could constantly be running on him.
“The ambulance came really quickly, I think it was within five minutes. Police, too,” Ms Mazza said.
“It was chaotic. It happened really quickly.”
Ms Mazza said the baby’s mother has been left “really traumatised” by the incident.
“She’s got a lot of anxiety right now. She’s not been able to sleep very well, if at all. So definitely struggling,” Ms Mazza said.
“Bub is in a stable condition … they say that he’ll need regular dressing changes under anaesthetic over the next weeks. They don’t know how long, but, yeah. It’s gonna take a while.”
The Project Host Waleed Aly also became emotional as he listened to Ms Mazza talk about the horrific incident.
“This is really, really hard. I don’t … I don’t think any of us know what to say to you because we have never really seen anything quite like this,” Aly said.
“So we know it’s really hard for you to speak to us in this circumstance.
“We really appreciate that and thank you … all the very best to you and your friend and, of course, the baby.”
A Go Fund Me page has been launched to help cover Luka’s medical costs.
“If you can help in any way by either donating or sharing. Would love to raise some money towards any medical or household costs to help ease the pressure off of my friend and her family while they take the time to be home and help their beautiful boy heal,” the fundraiser read.
Police want anyone who knows the man, or with information about the incident, to come forward.