At the age of 28 she was still a "little girl", the size of an average six-year-old.
Fragile and highly vulnerable, Ms Lucas lived with conditions that left her physically and intellectually underdeveloped, non-verbal and with thin skin susceptible to burns.
It was, therefore, "almost inconceivable" that two carers from NDIS provider LiveBetter made the fatal error of not checking the temperature of Ms Lucas's bath water on February 2, 2022, a judge has found.
Ms Lucas suffered severe burns to much of her body after being placed in a hot bath and died five days later while hugging her father in a Sydney hospital.
LiveBetter pleaded guilty to breaching its primary duty of health and safety and was convicted in the NSW District Court on Friday.
Judge Wendy Strathdee fined the organisation $675,000 and ordered it pay prosecutor SafeWork NSW's legal costs.
The court heard that though one carer ran her hand through the water before bathing Ms Lucas, neither worker checked a control panel that displayed a temperature of 60C rather than the usual maximum setting of 42C.
LiveBetter did not have any processes in place for burning incidents, did not provide any training for emergencies and its workers learnt bathing practices "on the job", Judge Strathdee said.
Ms Lucas's carers failed to call triple zero or run cold water over her burns, despite her skin peeling when she was removed from the water.
"It is certainly a gross failure of systems, but to my mind a gross failure of common sense to not appropriately test the water before putting Kyah or any client into the bath," Judge Strathdee said.
During a sentencing hearing in March, Ms Lucas's mother Sandra Wicks said her daughter was a "little girl" who had been fatally betrayed by those she depended on.
"The unexpected, horrific death of my daughter was a catastrophic event that tore my life and my heart apart," she said.
Judge Strathdee said she could not imagine Ms Wicks's pain and offered condolences to the family.
"To think that basic first aid was not applied to your tiny daughter after she had been plunged into a bathtub of boiling water is unbearable," the judge said.
"I note that it has destroyed Ms Wicks's life, as she still has nightmares about what happened.
"Her life has been destroyed."
The two carers were fired from LiveBetter and deregistered, the court was told.
NDIS records, however, show one of the carers was barred from disability work until she completed further education and the other was handed a three-year ban that has since expired.
LiveBetter was in 2024 fined a record $1.8 million in the Federal Court over multiple failures to comply with its standards of care.
The organisation, which amalgamated with care provider Kirinari in 2025, previously offered an unreserved apology to the family of Ms Lucas in court.
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