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“She was the sweetest girl any parent could ask for,” Rebecca told The Defender, describing her daughter Danielle, who died after 40 days in a New York hospital following a COVID-19 diagnosis. “And losing her never gets any easier.”
Rebecca was accustomed to negotiating the medical system after she had spent years advocating for her intellectually disabled daughter. Rebecca believes Daneille’s disability resulted from medical malpractice that deprived her of oxygen at birth.
Through a healthy lifestyle and supportive therapies, 28-year-old Danielle was living a joyful life with her family and working at Sunrise Assisted Living, serving breakfast and lunch to the elderly residents.
Danielle was rarely sick, Rebecca said. So when in July 2021, she developed a cough after being exposed to someone who had tested positive for COVID-19, Rebecca wasn’t worried. The next day, when Danielle came down with a fever, they began treating her at home with a Z-Pak and ivermectin, she said.
A week later, Danielle was still sick and her oxygen levels were low, so following a recommendation from a pharmacist friend, Rebecca treated her with a saline nebulizer, which improved her oxygen levels.
Still worried, Rebecca consulted a neighbor who was a doctor, who suggested she go to the nearby hospital, Northwell Health in Glen Cove. Danielle ate breakfast and went to the hospital with her mom on the morning of Aug. 2, 2021.
At the hospital, healthcare workers gave Danielle a PCR test and diagnosed her with COVID-19, hypoxia and COVID pneumonia, which her medical records confirm. They recommended she be admitted to the hospital. The records also indicated that Danielle’s breathing was unlabored, symmetric and clear at the time of her diagnosis.
Rebecca said the pneumonia diagnosis scared her “because my daughter never had any condition since I had her. And so to say, OK, we need to keep her for a couple of days, and then she’ll go — but it was a trap.”
There were no other symptoms or issues noted on Danielle’s intake chart. She was admitted with a note that she was expected to require at least two days of inpatient care.
Rebecca said they immediately started Danielle on a 10-day course of remdesivir. She said that although Danielle was generally well, eating large meals and singing “You are my sunshine” — her favorite song — the nurses would not allow her to sit up, get out of bed or walk to the bathroom herself.
“When you have pneumonia, you’re supposed to sit up, cough, have breathing exercises, use something to blow in to strengthen your lungs,” Rebecca said. “And here I am just blindly trusting, thinking OK, my daughter is really sick. Oh my gosh, don’t ask any questions.”
Within a few days, a doctor, whom Rebecca said the nurses called “the ventilator maestro,” examined Danielle. He said Danielle had to be moved to the intensive care unit (ICU) for observation. Rebecca said Danielle had not been deteriorating, but she consented to the move because she wanted her daughter to have the best care.
In the ICU hospital staff started her on an oxygen cannula (a thin tube inserted into the body), Rebecca said, “Even though her oxygen was normal, she had normal, she didn’t need to even have a cannula in the ICU. They started her on it on Monday.”
By Tuesday, the “ventilator maestro” said Danielle needed to go on a ventilator. “And I’m like, no, she’s not going on that,” Rebecca said, “She’s talking and eating.”
Rebecca then also developed a fever, and when she went home to get supplies for Danielle, hospital staff would not allow her back in without a negative COVID-19 test. She was apart from her daughter for 10 days.
Danielle became very agitated during that time because she was alone and frightened, Rebecca said. The hospital informed Rebecca by phone that they would have to restrain her because she was attempting to pull out her various IV tubes.
“She didn’t need to be restrained,” Rebecca said. “She needed her mom, she needed some comfort. According to the Americans with Disability Act, someone with special needs is not supposed to be alone in the hospital.”
By the end of the week, the doctor insisted Danielle needed to go on a ventilator, Rebecca said. Confused about what to do, Rebecca said she asked him, “If this was your child, would you put her on a ventilator?”
“He said yes,” she said. “And so I agreed to it. It was the worst mistake I ever made in my life. I agreed for them to finish her off. This is a guilt that you can’t forget. Why did I say ‘OK’?”
From that point on, Danielle’s condition steadily declined.
After 10 days, Rebecca was allowed back into the hospital. In the meantime, she said, the family also insisted that Danielle receive ivermectin. Danielle’s doctors disagreed, so Rebecca sought a court order, which she said she won.
After she was on the ventilator and the remdesivir, Danielle was showing elevated liver enzymes, which the doctors blamed on the ivermectin.
Rebecca said she told the medical team this is a common side effect of remdesivir, but was met with silence. Danielle also developed renal impairment after the course of remdesivir. Her kidneys and liver were normal at the time she was admitted.
Rebecca said by that time the hospital had begun administering a dangerous cocktail of drugs, including fentanyl, midazolam, morphine and Precedex, which are known to suppress respiration.
Soon they informed her that Danielle had heart damage to the right ventricle from COVID-19. “But they never called a cardiologist to consult. If the right side of somebody’s heart is damaged, you are supposed to call in for cardiologists,” Rebecca said.
At that point, Danielle’s body had become swollen and they said she was retaining fluid because of the pneumonia. Rebecca said the hospital also was giving Danielle insulin and Tylenol.
Rebecca said the doctors told her they couldn’t take Danielle off the ventilator or she would die, and she had to authorize trachea surgery and a feeding tube.
Danielle developed a hospital-acquired bacterial infection, confirmed by positive blood cultures, Rebecca said, and had a very high fever.
At that point, she said a physician’s assistant told Rebecca that at least “her kidneys are working, for now.”
Rebecca said she was in shock, “Now my daughter went to the hospital because of that cough. Anybody who got that COVID flu, the cough is horrendous. I never heard my daughter cough like that. So her whole visit was for a cough. Now, ‘the kidneys are working, for now’?”
She said another doctor told her that Danielle would need a lot of therapy, “if she comes out of here.” That’s when Rebecca realized her daughter might die.
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On Oct. 6, 2021, at about 5 a.m., Rebecca received a call telling her to come to the hospital quickly, because “it didn’t look good.”
When they got there, Danielle had stopped breathing. Rebecca said she demanded they perform CPR, but one of the doctors told Rebecca to “just let her go,” she said.
Danielle remained alive on life support over the course of the day, but when the tubes attached filled with blood they had to let her go. It was Oct. 6, 2021, 40 days after she was admitted for COVID pneumonia.
Rebecca said:
“The decision was made and I ran out of the room. … I was screaming in the waiting room. This didn’t just happen. My daughter didn’t just die in 40 days. Horrible. She was a good child. She had a life. She was happy. How dare they decide to play God and take her life away from me?”
The cause of death on her death certificate was COVID-19 and multiple organ failure, Rebecca said. She said she had a private autopsy done that showed her lungs were damaged from the ventilator.
Rebecca believes her daughter was the victim of profit-seeking by the hospital. She said the total medical bills for Danielle were $648,571 and the cost of remdesivir alone was $18,571.
She told The Defender she has been trying to find a lawyer to take her case so she can sue the hospital. In the meantime, she has dedicated a Substack to telling Danielle’s story and developed an app — Death By Hospital Protocol — where people can tell their stories and name the doctors involved.
Watch Rebecca Charles’ interview with the CHD Bus:
