National

'Mommy went to heaven'

FLORENCE, S.C. – As YoLanda Mention cuddled her newborn girl on the way home from the hospital, she was 15 hours from disaster.

The warning signs were there.

Nurses at McLeod Regional Medical Center, ranked among the top hospitals in South Carolina, had noted them in her medical records.

Blood pressure: 164/80 on her last night in the hospital after giving birth in March 2015. Then 175/94 the next morning.

But like thousands of women facing childbirth emergencies every year, YoLanda Mention didn’t get the care recommended by leading experts for new mothers, according to court records.

Since 2005, medical journal articles and treatment guidelines from leading medical societies have repeatedly warned that pregnant women and new moms with blood pressures like YoLanda’s need fast treatment.

Groups including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have given doctors and hospitals step-by-step instructions. They advise promptly giving specific pressure-lowering medications, usually by IV, to prevent stroke.

YoLanda, 38, didn’t get those drugs, according to her husband's lawsuit against the hospital and her doctor.

And despite her high and rising blood pressure, the lawsuit says there is no record of her medical team taking her blood pressure again in the final five hours before the hospital discharged her.

The blood pressure pills they sent home with her were not enough to save her.

Marco and YoLanda Mention met through their church and fell in love.

“She was just big on Christ. She was big on family,” Marco said.

They married on Valentine’s Day 2004, then moved to Georgia where they had their first two children, both girls.

With the birth of their first daughter, Shawde, in 2007, YoLanda was diagnosed with preeclampsia, a severe blood pressure disorder that can lead to serious injury or even death.

But it was treated without incident, Marco said.

After a few years, the couple moved back to rural Nesmith, South Carolina, to be closer to their families.

They were thrilled to learn another baby girl was on the way. The couple chose McLeod Regional, a 60-minute drive away, because they wanted a large, sophisticated facility like those in Atlanta.

Before and during pregnancy, YoLanda took blood pressure pills that controlled her hypertension, Marco said.

But as her due date approached, and then after baby Serenity was born, YoLanda’s blood pressure rose.

In the hours after the Mentions got home with their baby, YoLanda’s headache wouldn’t go away. But it was “just a little headache,” she reassured her husband.

What they didn’t know was YoLanda’s headaches were yet another urgent warning sign when combined with dangerously high blood pressure for a mother so soon after delivery.

That evening, Marco left his mother with his family and drove to their nearby church for choir rehearsal. A half hour later, YoLanda called.

“My head really hurts and it won’t stop,” YoLanda told him. Her blood pressure was in the 180s.

Marco canceled rehearsal and drove YoLanda back to McLeod Regional. They got there around 11 p.m.

YoLanda told ER staff about her high blood pressure readings and that she had just been discharged after delivering a baby. She complained of an excruciating headache – describing the pain as a 9 on a 10-point scale, her husband and court records say.

A nurse measured YoLanda’s blood pressure. It was 209/117, alarmingly high.

ER staff sent YoLanda for a brain scan, but afterward returned her to the waiting room without seeing a doctor or getting treatment, according to her husband and court records.

She waited three more hours.

“My headache’s getting in my eyes,” she told Marco.

Still waiting at 3:52 a.m., YoLanda asked the ER nurse to take her blood pressure again. It was 216/104.

Marco says he banged on the intake desk and demanded YoLanda be seen. A nurse finally took her to an exam room – more than five hours after she had arrived at the ER.

As they waited in the exam room for a doctor, Marco watched his wife’s face droop. Her speech became slurred.

“Sweetie, look at me. Look at me, Sweetie,” he said. He tried to get her to squeeze his hand. She couldn’t.

A few days later, she was dead. Blood vessels had burst in her brain.

YoLanda didn’t die from some unforeseen childbirth complication. What killed her didn’t take any expensive, high-tech equipment to detect and treat. Just a blood pressure cuff, IV medication that costs less than $60 a dose and a hospital adhering to best safety practices.

YoLanda’s obstetrician, Dr. Anu Chaudhry, and hospital officials declined to be interviewed through their attorneys. They denied wrongdoing and liability in court records. Earlier this year, they settled the lawsuit with Marco under secret terms.

Marco, a school bus driver, is now left on his own to raise three daughters, ages 3, 8 and 10.

“I really miss her,” he said as he told stories from an 11-year marriage filled with love and laughter. “It was like our lives were just beginning.”

Marco visits YoLanda’s grave often. She’s buried in a private family cemetery not far from the elementary school where Marco works and their two older daughters are students.

He tells her over and over how sorry he is.

“It's like something is telling me, 'Apologize for them,' ” he said.

When the girls come with him, they sometimes bring a balloon, a flower or bubbles to blow.

The two older daughters, Shawde and Shekinah, will tell their mom about the little things that happened in their day or at school. Sometimes they tattle to her about something one of their sisters did.

“Mommy, hey mommy,” says Shekinah. “Serenity, she slapped me… Are you gonna get her mommy?”

Serenity, who just turned 3, knows her mom mostly as the woman in photographs in her grandma’s curio cabinet.

She’ll rush to the living room and point: “Mommy?”

Marco wishes his wife could see the girls growing up. At times, he feels overwhelmed by the stresses of getting two kids to school, another to daycare and working two jobs.

“I’m like, 'Landa, sweetie, if you can hear me, I don’t know what to do,' ” Marco said, tears welling. “Help me because trying to be a mother and a father is hard. It’s hard."