Colorado boy, 2, is left horrifically-injured after suffering severe beating while being cared for by care worker 'who was DRINKING'

A Colorado mom is hoping to finally discover how her two-year-old son nearly died at the hands of a drunken unlicensed childminder who has just been arrested.

Stefanie Reichert left baby Giovanni with McKinley Slone Hernandez, 25, for an overnight stay at her home in Lakewood on September 1.

Hours later her son was fighting for his life with blunt force trauma injuries to his head and body, and she received a chilling instruction from her friend.

'I received a text message from the suspect saying I needed to rush to St. Anthony's Hospital because my son had gone lifeless after a bath,' she said.

'Once I saw him and all the 50 doctors standing around him, I had to leave the room because it was the worst thing I've ever seen in my life.'

The little boy had been airlifted to hospital and needed an emergency operation for a bleed on the brain that required part of his skull to be removed.

He was intubated and placed into an induced coma and has required more life-saving operations since, with his eventual prognosis still unclear.

'We had a rough Thanksgiving this year to say the least!' his mother wrote on the child's gofundme page.

He had more had surgery on Thursday and is still suffering from a fever, pain and discomfort, she explained.

'He's pretty swollen and his right eye is swollen shut,' she wrote. 'He slept most of the day and I'm hoping for a better day tomorrow.'

But the distraught mother is still no nearer top finding out how Giovanni came to be battered to within an inch of his life in the care of a woman she considered a 'friend'.

'She won't admit to anything,' Reichert told kdvr.com. 'All she's said is she was drinking, and he got hurt in her care.

'I make up scenarios in my head all the time for the injuries he sustained, so I wish I knew.'

And she fears the months in hospital may now be taking their own toll on her son. 'He doesn't like strangers,' she added.

'Now he doesn't like the nurses and the doctors. He doesn't let anybody touch him. We have to do everything for them in there.'

In the gofundme, set up by a friend, Giovanna is a previously 'happy, healthy, energetic two-year-old'.

'As you can imagine, his parents Anthony and Stefanie are completely distraught,' is adds.

'We don't want this sweet family to have to worry about anything other than getting their baby boy healthy again.

'Giovanna you are so resilient and so strong, keep fighting baby boy. We love you so much!'

But the family received some good news over Thanksgiving when a warrant was issued for Hernendez's arrest on felony child abuse charges and she handed herself into Lakewood Police on Thursday night.

'I feel so relieved, but I also feel like she should be charged with more,' she said.

'I feel like it's attempted murder, she almost killed my child.

'You never would think it would happen to you, especially by someone who you consider a friend.'