A tearful mother begged medics: “Please don’t let my baby die” as they tried to resuscitate the infant, the trial of the nurse Lucy Letby has heard. Letby, 32, is accused of the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of 10 more while working in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester hospital. On Monday, jurors at Manchester crown court began to hear evidence about her first two alleged victims – twins who suffered sudden collapses in their incubators in June 2015. Letby is said to have fatally injected air into the bloodstream of Child A, and then attempted to murder his sister, Child B, via the same method. The court heard that the parents were watching television in a side room on the night after the twins’ birth when a member of the nursing staff came in and said: “You need to come quick.” In a witness statement, Child A’s mother said: “All I can remember is being wheeled into a room and it felt like hundreds of people were standing over his cot and trying to resuscitate him. “A nurse asked if I was religious and if I wanted them to say a prayer.” Child A’s grandmother said: “The minute I went into that room and saw the baby boy, I knew he was gone. He was blue. “The room seemed full of medical staff. She [Child A’s mother] was sobbing uncontrollably at this point. She said: ‘Please don’t let my baby die, please don’t let my baby die.’ “He [Child A’s father] was in shock. He was like a statue and didn’t say a word.” She said a consultant told the family Child A was not responding, but her daughter continued to say: “Please don’t let him die, please don’t let him die.” After they were told the baby would have brain damage and further complications if he survived, she said she told her daughter: “You need to let him go.” Her daughter said, “No, carry on” to medical staff, but eventually relented and “simply nodded her head” to the doctors to stop chest compressions. In his witness statement, Child A’s father said to his partner “something along the lines of: ‘We have to let him go, he is not there any more.’” Both parents said: “One of the things that upset me the most is that I never had the opportunity to hold my son when he was alive.” The nursing care of Child A had been handed over to Letby shortly before his collapse, the court heard. Child B collapsed on the following night when Letby was again on duty, the jury was told. After the death of Child A, her mother said she was “frantic, anxious and extremely upset” and did not want Child B “to be out of my sight”. She and her partner were eventually persuaded by nursing staff to get some rest, the court heard. “We returned to the ward and attempted to watch a film and the next thing I know we were getting woke up by a nurse,” she said. “‘You need to come now.’ My heart sank. Not my baby. Not again.” They dashed into the neonatal unit where a nurse told them Child B had stabilised after a “very similar situation” to Child A, in which there was a rapid fall in heart rate and oxygen levels, the court was told. Her skin was also discoloured and mottled, which a consultant said they had never seen before, the jury heard. The mother said she was “frantic and terrified” and stayed with Child B throughout the night and the baby was “restless … as if she was trying to tell me something was wrong”. Child B was discharged in July 2015 and does not appear to have suffered any adverse consequences from her collapse, the court heard. A court order prohibits the reporting of the identities of the infants allegedly attacked by Letby, and prohibits identifying parents or witnesses connected with the children. Letby, originally from Hereford, denies all the offences, which are said to have been committed between June 2015 and June 2016. The trial continues.