(As told by her partner Juwan Lopez, his sister-in-law Jasmine Lopez, his mother-in-law Desiree Williams and her father Dennis Semple)

In 2020, we were all excited that Juwan and Sha-Asia were having a baby. At Sha-Asia’s last medical appointment on July 2, 2020 at Woodhull Medical Center, which was a routine stress test, they said that her blood pressure was too high.

She was already a few days past her due date, and because of this, they said they were going to induce her. Juwan was asked to step out of the room because they were going to give her an epidural. Sha-Asia was sending us text messages saying, ‘They’re getting ready!’

The next thing we knew, Juwan could see them rolling her into another room. He followed them through the doors, and we all just kept hearing the words, ‘Code blue.’ Juwan and Jasmine’s grandmother worked in a hospital, so we looked at her and asked, ‘What does that mean?’ She told us, ‘That means that somebody is dying.’

30 minutes later, they brought the new baby out. But our first reaction was, ‘Where’s Sha-Asia?’ We wanted to make sure she was ok, but the doctors just said that they were working on her. They tried over 30 times to resuscitate her without success. Juwan had to witness her lying there lifeless, blood all over her body.

We later found out that the anaesthesiologist basically murdered her. He inserted the epidural too far into her spine, three times the amount that it was supposed to go in. As a result, the fluid went to her heart which sent her into cardiac arrest.

That anaesthesiologist should not have had his job. He had a history of medical errors, multiple patients who had been harmed. He then lost his license and he can never practice again in the United States, but he should have been out of there. Sha-Asia shouldn’t have had to go through this.

She would have been such a good mom, and it’s so sad that she can’t experience her first daughter. She’d never even got to hug her.

We just feel that something has to be done. You go into the hospital to have a baby, and you’re excited. Nobody deserves to lose a life just to give a life. The hospitals have to do better, so fathers, mothers, and other family members don’t have to go through this hurt.