Lori Duckworth joins me to describe how Banner Hospital in Susanville, Calif., negligently allowed her granddaughter’s baby to die.
Donate to Inez’s GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/cea80d405
Facts of the case:
- Inez is Lori’s granddaughter, a 21-year-old Hispanic mother of two (Emilio 4, Ariiyah, 2), nearly five months pregnant with her third child, LylahLynn.
- At 1:15pm on Dec 19, Inez was driving alone on Highway 395 between Susanville and Reno when she hydroplanes in heavy rain, crashing into a tree at 60mph.
- Inez’s phone autodials 911. Inez is rescued by a passerby, who helps Inez call to inform Lori of the accident.
- Lori leaves from Wolf Creek, Oregon, to Susanville, at 1:30pm for a five-and-a-half hour drive.
- Ambulance arrives to transport Inez to Banner Hospital in Susanville.
- Inez arrives at Banner Hospital at 2:10pm and asks for an obstetrician, because she is a high-risk pregnancy who has had two previous miscarriages.
- Banner Hospital will not call in an obstetric team to diagnose Inez’s pregnancy, telling Inez multiple times the reason is that she “is 96 hours short of being 5 months pregnant.”
- Inez is given an ultrasound scan. Lori is on the phone with Inez and with the scan tech, who tells them the baby “has a heartbeat of 144bpm and is going to be fine” and commented “how cute it is she is sucking her thumb.”
- Banner Hospital discharges Inez at 3:55pm after 1 hour 45 minutes of arriving.
- By 4:00pm, within a half hour of being discharged, Inez begins bleeding heavily from her vagina while recuperating at her partner Vinnie’s grandparents’ home in Susanville.
- Vinnie rushes Inez back to Banner Hospital (six minutes away).
- Inez, bleeding, tells ER staff she had just been discharged a half-hour ago, had just been in a 60mph car crash, and is nearly five months pregnant.
- Hospital staff will not see Inez, telling her to “get in the line” at the ER that had an unknown (“we can’t tell you how long it’s going to be, you’ll have to wait”) wait time.
- After fifteen minutes, Vinnie goes to ER staff to explain Inez’s emergency, again ER staff tell them to wait in line.
- Inez is becoming quite emotional, so Vinnie takes her back to a friend’s house while calling Lori, who advises Inez to calm down, lay down, and put her feet up.
- Lori arrives in Susanville at 6:30pm due to weather. Inez has been in medical distress for two-and-a-half hours.
- Lori, Vinnie, and Inez depart Susanville at 6:45pm for the one-hour drive to Reno’s Renown Hospital.
- Upon arrival at Reno Renown Hospital at 8:15pm (due to weather), ER staff immediately begin treating Inez.
- Inez is immediately given a full-body CT scan for Inez and LylahLynn. No heartbeat is detected in LylahLynn.
- Inez is moved to a room where Lori and Vinnie are, and a tech performs an ultrasound scan to confirm the viability of LylahLynn.
- Ten minutes later, a midwife and an obstetrician nurse came to tell Inez that she was going to be fine, but “I’m sorry, your baby has passed away.”
- Midwife and nurse explained how the placenta had torn from the uterine wall and the baby’s heartbeat had stopped. Nurse asked, “the ultrasound at Banner may have shown that,” and asked Inez to sign permission to get those records.
- Exactly 24 hours after the car crashed, Inez gave birth to a stillborn LylahLynn.
