B.C. woman alleged to have handled babies at hospital has past animal cruelty conviction

A B.C. woman arrested and charged after allegedly giving three babies “skin-to-skin” contact in a Surrey hospital, has a previous animal cruelty conviction.

Lindsey Susan Hirtreiter, 35, is accused of three counts of assault and remains in custody pending a bail hearing.

According to police, a woman went into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Surrey Memorial Hospital, at 6:55 a.m. on Oct. 28 where she allegedly removed her shirt and held three infants, giving them skin-to-skin contact.

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None of the infants was injured, police said, but hospital security removed the woman from the property.

Sgt. Tige Pollock of the Surrey Police Service the incident is being treated as an assault because  “the application of force to any person without their consent is an assault. So the act of picking up the babies would, in effect, be an assault.”

In November 2016, Hirtreiter was sentenced to two years probation for causing an animal to continue to be in distress in connection with a brutal attack on a black Labrador on Valentine’s Day 2015 in Surrey.

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At the time, the family of Ryder, a three-year-old black Lab, told Global News their dog ran off from their new home in the Chimney Heights neighbourhood in northeast Newton on Feb. 14, 2015.

Ryan Westaway said they couldn’t find Ryder that night, but he was discovered the next morning.

Surrey RCMP told Westaway that Ryder had been stabbed with scissors in the face and eye and beaten with a blunt object. There were also pieces of jewellery and other items put in his body.

Ryder survived but Westaway said the family’s dog had a long road to recovery.

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