Legal expenses for Emma’s case

Hello, my name is Melissa, and this is my daughters story. All we want is justice for our sweet baby girl. We want her story to catch some traction so we can hopefully push harder and find the help we need to get her the justice she deserves, and to hold the people responsible for her death accountable for their actions (or lack there of) and for being negligent to the point that a precious life was cut way too short. We hope to spread awareness so other families don’t have to go through the same thing we are, and so they will know what to look for and to trust their instincts and advocate for their children, because nobody else will, as we so unfortunately found out.

On March 20th 2021, my six month old daughter Emelina started acting strange. We were on the bed together and she was wiggling around and trying to crawl like she normally would, when she suddenly rolled over onto her back and her eyes started to roll around in an unnatural manner. Her breathing was also very labored and shallow. I picked her up immediately and she was limp, dead weight in my arms, her arms and head dangling as if she was unconscious. This was very alarming to me. I immediately handed her to her father and told him to get in the back seat of my car and hold her on the way to Kaisers urgent care on stockdale hwy. I told him not to put her in her car seat and to instead hold her so that he could monitor her breathing. By the time we arrived at the urgent care, Emelina was acting like herself again. She was aware and smiling and moving normally. Regardless, her father took her in and told them what was happening to her just a few minutes previous. He explained that she was seemingly going unconscious and her breathing had gotten very shallow to the point that we were even too afraid to put her in her car seat for the drive over. I was unable to go in because they only allowed for one parent to accompany a minor patient. I stayed with my two older children, and we drove to a nearby valley strong bank to make a withdrawal. After leaving the bank we went back to the urgent care, and Emelina had already been seen and discharged. This took approximately 30 minutes. When her father strapped her into her car seat and got back into the car, he told me that the doctor that saw Emelina told him that she merely had the beginning of an ear infection, he told me he reiterated to the doctor that she was acting as if she was going unconscious and was having trouble breathing just a few minutes prior, to which the doctor said that it was completely normal for babies to act that way from time to time. The doctors examination consisted of looking into Emelinas nose, and her ears, as well as listening to her breathing with a stethoscope. Despite her father expressing our concerns, the doctor did not order any kind of testing nor any labs. We thought since he brought up her breathing twice that they would at least do a chest X-ray, being that we are in the middle of a pandemic in which an illness attacks your lungs, and babies cannot speak for themselves, but he did not. He wrote her a prescription for amoxicillin to treat her ear infection and sent her home.

On April 5th 2021, the day she turned 7 months old, and 16 days after her urgent care visit, in the early afternoon, Emelina stopped breathing. She was sitting in my grandfathers lap in the living room. I was supposed to be taking my grandfather to the Kia dealership to pick up his car after a repair. Once my grandfather was ready to get up and get dressed to go pick his car up, I picked Emelina up out of his lap, I remember this so vividly, as I picked her up she smiled so big and so bright at me and I smiled back at her. I carried her to my bedroom and handed her to her father so I could get dressed to take my grandfather to pick his car up. I saw him cradle her and offer her a bottle, which she took. As I was getting ready to leave, Emelinas father got up and laid her down on the bed. I watched as she drank a few gulps before turning away from her bottle and turning over onto her hands and knees. She began to wiggle around, trying to crawl, she had been learning to crawl for a few weeks at this point but wasn’t quite there yet, but she was getting so close. At times when she was wiggling and scooting around, she would tire herself out and put her head down and drift off to sleep on her stomach with her knees tucked beneath her. I watched as she did this before I walked out the door to take my grandfather to pick his car up. As I was approaching the dealership to drop my grandfather off, my phone rang. It was Emelinas father, so I answered. He told me that in the 15 minutes since I had left the house, he found Emelina not breathing, tried to wake her, called 911, and began cpr. By the time he called me the ambulance was already there to transport her to Kern Medical Center on the corner of Mount Vernon and Flower Street. I rushed home as fast as I could, and when I pulled up to my house it was surrounded by multiple Kern County Sheriff vehicles. As I got out of my car an officer approached and told me that my daughter was no longer breathing and had been taken to KMC for treatment. I dropped to my knees in hysterics. I saw her father sitting on a bench on the front porch as multiple officers entered my home. I sat next to him and noticed his mother parked in the parking lot next door taking my older two children away from the scene. The officers told us that nobody was permitted to enter the house and they questioned us. As they questioned us, I asked if we could please go to the hospital to check on our daughter, to which they said we were able. We got in the car and rushed to KMC. My mother met us there. Once inside, we told them who we were and why we were there. They put the three of us in a tiny room with chairs and said someone would be in to speak with us. After what felt like an eternity of pacing and hyperventilating and the worst anxiety I have ever experienced, a doctor along with a nurse finally opened the door. They told us that my daughter was in very critical condition and that they couldn’t tell me whether or not she would recover. They were not equipped to deal with a trauma of this capacity, so they arranged for her to be transported to Valley Childrens Hospital in Madera County by helicopter. They led us into the room where they had her lying on a gurney. Her eyes were open, but not responsive, she felt cold. The only thing the doctors at KMC did for Emelina before her transport arrived, was adding drops to her eyes to keep them moist, and sending in the chaplain to pray for her. Of course she was hooked up to an IV and monitors, and someone from the sheriffs office came to take photos of my baby with a name card on her belly, as if she was already gone, right in front of me, but that was the extent of what happened at KMC.

After a few of the hardest hours of my life, her transportation to Valley Childrens Hospital arrived. They began to get her ready for transport, and there was so much happening I ended up shoved into a corner with a bedside table blocking me in. There were so many sheriffs officers as well as hospital staff and transport team members that it was hard for me to be able to see what was happening, but once they got her moved to her transport gurney, which was just on the other side of the table that had me pinned into the corner, I heard one of the women who was there to transport her ask “why is this babies internal temperature 43 degrees?” then she started taking charge and shouting commands. She was the first person who seemed to really want to help my baby girl. She demanded heated blankets and other equipment to help get Emelinas temperature up, and as quickly as they arrived to transport her, they were gone.

I wouldn’t see my daughter again for hours. The helicopter left Kern Medical Center around 5 or 6 o’clock the evening of April 5th 2021. Emelinas father and I got into our car and followed as closely as we could, not wanting her to be alone. We arrived at the hospital that night, I believe somewhere around 9 o’clock. We went to the place we were directed, the pediatric intensive care unit, and buzzed at the door. We were told to sit in the waiting room until a doctor, again accompanied by a nurse, took us into a room furnished with couches and chairs. This room was a designated “quiet room” specifically for our family. They sat across from us and told us that our daughter was more than likely not going to be leaving the hospital. They explained how she had been without oxygen for an extended period of time and how that affected her brain. They however did not tell us that she had coded upon arrival, we found that out much later when we received her medical records. We asked if we could see her and were told that she was having tests done, that it would take a while, but that they would call us as soon as we were able to see her. We slept, between crying and hyperventilating in hysterics, in the car right outside the hospital. We finally got a call from them in the early hours of April 6th 2021, to let us know that Emelina was in her room and that we could go up to see her. When we walked into her room, we saw her, hooked up to everything she possibly could be. She had wires all over her head, pick lines, IVs in her arms and hands. Tubes in her nose and mouth. All we could do was hold her hand and try to rub her head avoiding all the wires in her hair.

The morning of the 6th of April 2021, we were introduced to the doctor who would be taking over care of Emelina. She was very up front and matter of fact with her prognosis, in fact, she was even a bit mean and callous and condescending. She informed us that our daughter was in fact going to die. She advised us to call any family members that would like to come and say goodbye to her. She told us that they were giving her medication to keep her heart pumping until everyone got the chance to see her, but that if she decides to go sooner, that they were not going to attempt to revive her. Nobody presented us with DNR order nor did anyone ever mention it, they made it seem as though we had no choice in the matter. They did revive her once during the late morning of April 6th because her father and I were not in the room when her heart stopped, we ran as fast as we could to her room when they alerted us, and the doctor told us that she would not be doing it again, as it would only cause further trauma. The family members came and said their goodbyes. Toward the end, they brought a bigger bed in so I could lay with her one last time. Then she was slipping away, her father sat down to hold her for the last time, then traded seats with me so I could do the same, and I held her as she took her final breath and the life drained from her tiny body. She was pronounced deceased just before midnight on April 6th 2021.

We headed back home to Bakersfield the next morning. On the drive home I received a call from the coroner. My daughter was going to be a coroners case, so I had no say in what happened to her body during the time they had her. Valley Childrens Hospital had a few social workers speak with us while we were there to inform us that they were going to open a case to investigate Emelinas death to “make sure that what happened was not done intentionally”. We were treated as though we were criminals under suspicion and we were responsible for what happened to our daughter. They told us that they would be doing full body X-rays and multiple other scans and tests to look for any signs of abuse or neglect. Of course they found none. We got home on April 7th 2021 around noon. No sooner than we got our car unpacked and laid down to cry and mourn the loss of our baby girl together, a social worker knocked on our door. She did a walk through of our house, and scheduled an appointment for her to come back and speak with us a couple days later when our two older children would also be present. Of course our case was closed and any accusations of abuse or neglect were deemed unfounded.

From the time Emelina stopped breathing, until approximately 8 weeks later, we still had no answers as to what happened to our beautiful baby girl. From the time the ambulance took her to Kern Medical Center, until she took her last breath, nobody could give us any answers. Every doctor, nurse, or other medical professional we came into contact with simply told us that they didn’t know why or how this happened to Emelina, despite doing extensive testing during her stay at Valley Childrens Hospital. We had no answers as to what happened or why it happened to our baby for weeks. It was agony. Until finally, one late night phone call came from the coroner. She told me that the doctors report from my daughters autopsy had just landed on her desk, and that she thought it best to call even though it was late, to finally give us an answer as to what took our baby girl from us. Acute bilateral lobar pneumonia. This was the coroners findings. My sweet baby girl was suffering from pneumonia, and apparently had been for some time before her death. When I requested her medical records from every entity that had been in contact with her, I had no problems receiving them, except for Valley Childrens Madera. I requested all of her records and labs, tests and radiographic images from the beginning of her stay until the end. I waited weeks to hear back from them, and when I did it was in the form of a letter denying any and all access to any of her records “pursuant to Health and Safety Code, section 123115(a) (2), the hospital may restrict or deny access to parts of the medical records when "the health care provider determines that

access to the patient's records requested by the representative would have a detrimental effect

on the provider's professional relationship with the minor patient or the minor's physical safety or psychological well-being." Which I had trouble understanding, because my daughter had already passed, and a relationship between her and the doctor as well as her physical safety and psychological well-being were no longer factors. In confusion I reached out to the hospitals patient representative line, and I also filed a complaint with the Fresno department of health services. When one of the Valley Childrens patient representatives reached out to return my call, we talked about possible reasons the doctor would deny my request for Emelinas records. We decided that it was more than likely due to the CPS case that was opened while she was in their care, or possibly the investigation with the Kern County Sheriffs Department with detective Erik Loera, however by the time I had requested these records, both cases had been closed and we were cleared of any suspicion of involvement in Emelinas death, and the representative informed me that the doctor would have received the same letters stating so from both CPS and the Kern County Sheriffs Department, so the doctor would have been aware that these cases were no longer factors that could restrict my access to my child’s medical records. The representative got in contact with the doctor to find out why she had denied my request, and when she called me back she informed me that she was able to get partial approval from the doctor for a portion of Emelinas records, but that if I wish to receive anything further, or full medical transcripts, that I would have to do so by subpoena of the court. I still have not received full access to Emelinas medical records, including radiographic images, from Valley Childrens Madera. We were treated as if we were under suspicion the entirety of the hospital stay despite being 100% cooperative and compliant in any and every step the hospital deemed necessary, and were then denied full access to our baby girls records for a reason that remains unknown. We also now know that Emma’s medical records from Kaiser are incorrect in that the records from the urgent care visit on 03/20/2021 state only the doctors diagnosis and opinion. Not only do they not state any of our concerns as her parents, any triage information or the list of symptoms given to the registration nurse for the reason for her visit, but the records state the exact opposite. They state that there were no reports of breathing concerns or any other respiratory symptoms. For this reason, I cannot find a lawyer to take my case pro bono. Because Kaiser lied on my babies medical records nobody will even consider moving forward without a large lump sum up front due to the fact that they don’t believe they will be able to prove Emma’s symptoms on that day, again because Kaiser falsified her medical records. Our little family is unfortunately in no position to be able to pay a lawyer the amount that most are asking for to take her case. To date I have done anything and everything to try to get her justice, most recently filing an amendment of medical records with Kaiser. I’m trying so hard, but I can’t do this alone. I’ve been fighting a hard fight for over a year while also grieving the loss of my beautiful little ray of sunshine and this has been the hardest fight of my life. I feel helpless and hopeless and defeated and now all I want is for her story to be heard, even if she never gets the justice she deserves. To let parents know to push for the care their children deserve. To advocate for those who can’t advocate for themselves. To be a voice for the voiceless. I did what I believed I needed to do for my baby by taking her to Kaisers urgent care the moment i felt something was wrong, and then following the doctors orders in giving her the medication that he had prescribed for her, and the doctors laziness in not doing any testing or labs on her caused this illness to go undiagnosed and therefore untreated. That doctor sent my sweet baby home to suffer and die from a very treatable, very survivable illness. This is the story of my daughters tragic, untimely, and preventable death. Our family is broken as we try to navigate life without our little angel. My children are exposed to the concept of death, which no 5 or 6 year old should ever have to comprehend, as we try to explain why their baby sister is never coming home again. They are traumatized after seeing her turn blue and watching their father perform cpr on her small body as she coughed up formula from her mouth and nose. None of this needed to happen. Emelina should still be here with us, and now, in the wake of her death, all we want is for nothing like this to ever happen to another baby who cannot speak up for themselves. Medical Professionals cannot continue to get away with this type of negligence. No more senseless, unnecessary, and preventable deaths of children. It was the doctors job to find out what was ailing Emelina and speak for her, diagnose her, and treat her. Babies cannot speak for themselves, so we must do it for them. We must advocate for those who cannot advocate for themselves. Justice must be served for Emelina as well as all the other children who have lost their lives to medical negligence. Emma was such a beautiful, bright, and wonderful soul. She deserved better than this. Thank you for taking the time to read Emelinas story, and a special thank you to anyone who is able to donate to Emma’s cause. We couldn’t do it without you.

With much love,

Melissa Plant,

Mother of Emelina Opal Reyes

#justiceforbabyemma

In loving memory of Emelina Opal Reyes

September 5th, 2020-April 6th, 2021

Rest In Peace our sweet little angel.