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"Baby flying" lands teen behind bars

By Jennifer Emert - bio | email

July 1, 2008

LEE COUNTY, GA (WALB) -   A Lee County teenager put up a shocking video on YouTube, showing him using a large, inflatable pillow to launch an eight month old baby through the air.

Now that 16-year-old boy is charged with felony cruelty to a child. He was arrested after a Lee County school teacher saw the video and called the Sheriff's Office.

It's a mother's nightmare. Watch as this 16-year-old DeSoto boy demonstrates, for the world to see, how to, as he put it, 'make a baby fly.' He puts the baby on an inflatable pillow, then jumps on the pillow to launch the baby through the air.

The baby landed several feet away on the floor and can be heard crying.

"It was terrible," says Lee County Sheriff Harold Breeden. "I can't believe a 16-year-old kid would do something like this."

The 8-month-old child was left in the care of the family of the teen who was actually behind the camera shooting the video. The Lee County Sheriff's office got a call from a Lee County High School teacher who was shown the posting by another student. Fearing for the child's safety she called investigators, and now her former student is in the detention center.

"He's incarcerated in RYDC," Breeden said. "We took him down this morning and he has been arrested and charged with cruelty to children in the first degree, and in the third degree."

The first count for violence to a child under 18 and the second count for allowing his 16-year-old friend to see the violence by encouraging him to videotape it. The teen who videotaped it is not charged with a crime. Pediatrician Donna King, who has 8-month-old twins, says the baby could have been seriously injured.

"Trauma to the skull, of course comes to mind at first. A trauma to the skull resulting in the fracture of the skull which can cause a contusion to the brain, bleeding inside the brain," said the doctor.

As for the teen's actions, the Sheriff's office hopes others will learn from their mistake.

"It's not going to be funny when the judge gets through with him, he'll think twice next time you know, about how funny it was," Brreden says.

The video has been removed from the YouTube site and the teen, who's never been in trouble before, must now await his fate in court.

The Lee County Sheriff's office has asked the baby's parent to have the child seen by a doctor, they're still waiting to hear if the baby had any injuries from the fall.

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