After giving birth to twin boys, a mother desperately pleaded with the hospital staff to save her dying babies. However, once the doctor arrived, she took one look at them and walked away.
When people arrive at a hospital, they assume they’ll be treated for their ailment with every resource the medical employees have to offer. What they do not expect is for their assigned doctor to turn them away and leave them at the mercy of their affliction. Unfortunately for the new mother of newborn twins, that’s exactly what they did.
After a strenuous labor, a mother, identified only as Amanda F., gave birth to precious twin boys Emery and Elliot at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Like most twins, the babies were born prematurely, requiring medical intervention to ensure their survival. However, instead of rallying their efforts to save the newborns, the entire medical staff, including the on-call neonatologist, refused to even assess the babies because they didn’t believe the 22-week-and-5-day-old twins would survive, Live Action News reports.
In a gut-wrenching video captured by Amanda’s mom, the new mother desperately pleads with medical professionals to do something, anything, to save her precious babies. In the end, Amanda makes a heartbreaking apology to her boys, repeatedly telling them, “Mommy tried,” as they take their final breaths.
Disturbingly, the hospital had previously assured Amanda that if the newborn twins made it to 22 weeks and 5 days gestation, which they did, they would be offered every medical resource available to save their lives. However, despite babies born at 21 weeks surviving with the help of medical attention, not one staff member intervened as both Emery and Elliot struggled to breathe.
“I pleaded with nurses and other hospital staff to help try to save my babies,” Amanda said in a statement. “I was told they would not survive. I asked if they would at minimum assess the babies after they were born to determine possibility of survival. I was informed NICU would not assess the twins and that the babies would probably be stillborn or at best breathe for a moment.”
Tiny Emery lived and breathed outside of his mother’s womb for 45 minutes before he died. His larger brother Elliot, who was born a few hours later, fought for his life for 2 and a half hours before passing away in his mother’s arms.
Adding to Amanda’s misery, she soon received a hospital statement claiming that each of her newborn twins was a “stillbirth,” despite the fact that “they were born alive and died” as the doctors and nurses refused to help them, she told Created Equal. The hospital has refuted Amanda’s complaint, announcing that they “consider this matter closed.” They have also refused to offer any condolences to the grieving mother and her family.
According to a 2015 study published by the New England Journal of Medicine, if given assistance, babies born at 22 weeks have a greater chance of surviving than medical experts initially believed. In fact, the youngest baby to survive was born at just 21 weeks and 4 days, nearly a whole week earlier than Amanda’s newborn twins.
The video was released by Created Equal on Amanda’s behalf in an effort to not only bring attention to the hospital’s behavior but also to garner support in the call for Riverside to amend its policy regarding premature births. Amanda hopes that her tragedy will spur support for her fight to change the hospital’s official policy in caring for preemies.
Hopefully, the story of Emery and Elliot’s short time on this earth will bring some awareness to the resilience of human life and prevent the same tragic end for future premature babies.
