King County prosecutors allege that an Auburn woman shook a 9-month-old boy in her care so hard that he may die.

And should the baby survive, prosecutors say, he will be severely impaired for the rest of his life.

Prosecutors on Wednesday charged 18-year-old Dottie Marie Reed with first-degree assault of a child. She is in jail at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent on $250,000 bail, awaiting her June 7 arraignment.

Prosecutors allege that Reed was babysitting the baby and his older sister May 20 at her home when she called 911 to report that the child was not waking up and would stop breathing when she laid him down.

Arriving Valley Regional Fire Authority medics found the baby unresponsive and limp. He was airlifted to Seattle Children’s Hospital, where doctors diagnosed him with a subdural hematoma, a subarachnoid hemorrhage and retinal hemorrhaging, injuries that didn’t mesh with Reed’s claim that she’d only set him down on the floor too hard. Prosecutors claim that only Reed could have caused injuries like those.

Reed allegedly admitted to detectives that she’d been frustrated with the child for weeks because of his fussiness. She said it appeared that didn’t like her.

Auburn Police Detective Michelle J. Vojir said in charging documents that Reed picked the boy up roughly from under his arms and put him down on the floor of her bedroom “really hard,” whereupon she heard a sound as his head snapped forward. He began crying and then stopped, appearing to fall asleep. She told detectives that she was standing by his playpen when she noticed that he wasn’t breathing.

“Reed said that was when she realized that she had hurt him. She stated that she put (him) down too hard and turned him around too quick and hard and that shook him. Reed stated that when she did it, she wasn’t really thinking about what she was doing, that it just happened,” Vojir wrote.

Senior Deputy Prosecutor Charles K. Sergis laid out the complaint.

“The defendant committed an extremely serious assault against (the baby) who she was supposed to be caring for as his babysitter. Instead, the defendant inflicted an injury on (the boy) that he may not survive. If he does survive, it is extremely unlikely that he will ever be able to care for himself, walk, talk, eat or enjoy any meaningful quality of life,” said Sergis.