25.01.2026 18:11
The statement of nurse Hazel Dırık Bağrıyanık, who was arrested in the case where she is accused of inflicting violence on a 5-day-old baby, causing permanent disability, and facing up to 3 years in prison, has emerged in court. In her statement, which the judge played and watched, Bağrıyanık said, "I needed to take the victim's blood; the procedure I performed is in accordance with the rules. Since we couldn't establish an intravenous line, we were taking blood this way using the drip method. I acted this way to position the baby."
In Kahramanmaraş, the statement of nurse Hazel Dırık Bağrıyanık, who was arrested in the case where she is accused of inflicting violence on Deniz Esin Bozoklar (5 days old) and causing her to remain physically and mentally disabled, has emerged. She is facing up to 3 years in prison.
Bağrıyanık, who surrendered to the police station in Dinar district of Afyonkarahisar, connected to the Kahramanmaraş 10th Criminal Court of First Instance via the SEGBİS system and stated in her defense that she repeated her previous statements and had nothing to add.
THE JUDGE SHOWED THE FOOTAGE, SHE RESPONDED, "THE WARNINGS I MADE WERE TO KEEP HER UPRIGHT"
Upon this, the judge opened and showed the security camera footage. When the judge asked about the moments in the footage where she hit the baby with a blood collection tube, scraped her hair with her nails, and lifted the flesh of her thigh, Hazel Dırık Bağrıyanık said, "I needed to take the victim's blood; the procedure I performed is in accordance with the rules. Since we could not open an intravenous line, we were taking blood this way using the drip method. I acted this way to position the baby. I did not intend to hit the baby with the blood tube; I only touched her. I touched the victim's hair to clean it because I saw a bandage and cotton from the mattress on her head; I had no intention to harm. My purpose was to take the victim's blood and position her, and to keep the patient's functional warning systems upright; I had no other intention," she said.
"I DID IT WITH A MOMENTARY LAPSE AND REFLEX"
When the judge reminded her that the footage showed her hitting Deniz Esin Bozoklar's head multiple times, squeezing her leg and quickly pulling it, and squeezing her abdominal area, Hazel Dırık Bağrıyanık said: "I regret it; I did it with a momentary lapse and reflex. I never did it with the intention to harm. There was absolutely no intention to squeeze; the scale was slippery and the sides were open, so there was a risk of the patient falling. It was an action I took to correct her position. I had to squeeze and tampon the abdominal area because there was a bowel issue, and she was defecating outside due to infection; I did it because that area needed to remain closed. The patient had a congenital feeding problem, and a surgery had been performed by a pediatric surgeon to open the intestines."
WHAT HAPPENED?
Newly emerged footage related to the incident that occurred in 2021 at the Neonatal Care Unit of Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University Health Application and Research Hospital has made headlines in Turkey.
The baby named Deniz Esin Bozoklar, who was born on May 21, 2021, was placed in an incubator in the neonatal unit due to low birth weight. On May 31, 2021, after a nurse noticed a stillness in the baby, it was determined through the camera footage that the baby was subjected to violence by nurse Hazel Dırık Bağrıyanık on May 26, 2021.
While the hospital management transferred the baby to a private hospital, the couple Sema and Abdullah Bozoklar were not informed about the events. At the private hospital, it was determined that Deniz Esin had both physical disabilities and cerebral palsy and epilepsy.
Three years later, in June 2024, a case was opened against nurse Hazel Dırık Bağrıyanık for "intentional injury," with a request for up to 3 years in prison. Until that day, the Bozoklar couple, who believed their daughter was born disabled, learned through an e-Government message on their phones that their baby had been left disabled due to nurse violence.
In addition to the footage of the incident, details such as Hazel Dırık Bağrıyanık's inability to take blood from the 5-year-old baby for 14 minutes, during which she inflicted violence by hitting the baby's head, and that the baby's leg was broken, were also included in the case file.