Parents blame Emory hospital for unborn baby’s death

A Fulton County couple claim the negligence of staff at Emory University Hospital Midtown led to the death of their unborn son and that they were forced to seek help elsewhere after being denied treatment for two hours.

Crystal Bealing and Joshua McCreary filed a lawsuit Aug. 22 against the hospital, Emory Healthcare Inc. and unnamed hospital staff that they say are liable for the death of their unborn son, Carmelo Arthur McCreary-Bealing, two years earlier.

A spokesperson for Emory did not comment on the case, filed in the Fulton County State Court.

Bealing was 38 weeks pregnant when she began to feel sharp contractions and severe pain while showering at home around 8 p.m. on Aug. 22, 2022, the complaint alleges. After noticing that she was bleeding heavily from her vaginal area, Bealing went with McCreary to Emory University Hospital Midtown, the lawsuit states.

The couple claim that they arrived about 9:30 p.m . and went straight to the emergency room where they informed at least five employees that Bealing was having trouble breathing, experiencing severe and consistent abdominal pain and bleeding. Bealing was unable to walk or sit upright and felt sick, per the lawsuit.

Bealing and McCreary allege they requested immediate care but were ignored by emergency room employees until Bealing was asked around 10 p.m. to fill out a seven-page hospital admission agreement. Hospital staff then ignored Bealing as she vomited twice while waiting in the emergency room, the couple claimed.

They said Bealing was taken in a wheelchair to the maternity emergency section, where she was “placed along a hallway against a wall” and told by a hospital employee that she had not yet been treated because a staff shift change was about to happen and the hospital had no available beds.

Bealing claimed she saw three or four employees who seemed to be on the new shift take their positions in the waiting room of the maternity emergency section, and received a terse response from an employee when she asked when she would receive medical attention.

An employee sat at the desk in the waiting area and ate a meal while Bealing waited to receive care, the lawsuit alleges. It states that other employees in the maternity emergency area ignored Bealing, who then noticed that her unborn son’s once-vigorous kicking had stopped.

“With the bleeding and pain continuing, and the sudden stopping of the kicking by the baby, and since it was clear that the defendants had no intention of examining or treating her, Mrs. Bealing asked Mr. McCreary to take her to another hospital,” the lawsuit states.

Bealing and McCreary claim they left Emory University Hospital Midtown around 11:30 p.m. and arrived about 10 minutes later at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital. They said no one at Emory made any effort to speak with them as they left or refer them to another emergency treatment facility.

Piedmont’s staff acted immediately to treat Bealing and she underwent an ultrasound within 10 minutes of arriving, per the complaint. But it was too late, according to Bealing and McCreary, who said they were told by a Piedmont physician that their son had died as a result of “a placenta abruption,” in which the placenta separates from the inner wall of the womb.

In an affidavit attached to the lawsuit, Atlanta obstetrician gynecologist Sholah Pittman said she reviewed Bealing’s medical records and determined that, “Emory University Midtown Hospital’s doctors and staff failed to recognize, evaluate, and treat Crystal Bealing’s obstetric hemorrhage and placental abruption, leading to her injuries and the death of her unborn son.”

“It is my opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that had the appropriate standard of care been followed, plaintiffs would not have suffered their extreme mental and physical pain and suffering and the death of Carmelo Arthur McCreary-Bealing,” Pittman said.

Bealing said she had received routine prenatal care from Emory since April 2022, including a scheduled examination about 12 hours before her pain began. She said she was told during the examination, at the women’s center inside Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital, that she and her unborn baby were fine.

Bealing and McCreary are represented by former Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, who did not respond Tuesday to questions.

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