After 11 years of praying for a child, Makayla Thomas and her husband Joe Cofer were overjoyed to finally be expecting. Makayla eagerly documented every moment, ready to share this long-awaited miracle with family and friends.
Now, those cherished videos tell a different story—a horrifying account of how a Dallas emergency room failed to act in time, leaving Makayla to give birth alone in the ER room, with no staff around to help as her newborn daughter’s life hung in the balance.
In June, Makayla began experiencing some abdominal pain, leading her to be taken to Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas three separate times over a span of two weeks. Finally, during her third stay, she was diagnosed with a kidney infection caused “possibly” by an “untreated UTI.”
“They discharged me, and said, ‘Just take the new antibiotics, and you’ll be fine,’” she recalled.
Just two days later, Thomas woke up in “unbearable” pain. Due to her experience at Texas Presbyterian, she opted to go to a freestanding ER called Preston Hollow Emergency Room. She was hoping they would be able to properly treat her kidney infection.
“I thought I’m going to go to the emergency room, and hope they can do something about this pain and kidney infection,” she said.
At just 26 weeks pregnant, Makayla highlighted, “Never at that moment…did I think I was going through labor.”
Upon arrival, Thomas was checked and screened, nurses then alerted the physician that something was seriously wrong. Thomas’ paperwork from Preston Hollow confirms she arrived in abdominal pain and with vaginal bleeding. Unknown to Makayla, Kidney Infections are known to cause possible preterm labor.
Only minutes later, while she was left alone in the room, her pain got worse and she felt the sudden urge to push.
“I was just like ‘… Did I push out my baby?’” she recalled.
Unfortunately, Makayla delivered her baby, by herself, in a matter of seconds, and her precious newborn rolled off the bed onto the floor. This is due to baby Cofer being born en caul, a rare type of birth, where a baby is delivered still inside the amniotic sac.
Shocked, the staff was notified and Makayla started filming how the staff were treating her child. Now, she’s glad she did.
“I was really in a state of shock,” she said.
“So that’s the baby?” Thomas is heard asking in the video.
“Yeah,” an employee replies.
“Is that the baby? Is it dead?” Thomas asks.
“It appears to be…yeah,” an employee replies.
“It was just so nonchalant. They were examining her but not attending to her medically,” Thomas recalled.
In Thomas’ video, medical staff can be seen almost just staring at the newborn, not knowing what to do next.
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Instead of beginning immediate treatment, the staff left her baby in the room with her. Thomas videoed herself caressing her sweet little girl, who she named Heaven Grace, thinking her first time holding her daughter would be her last.
“If this is the only time I’m going to see her in the flesh,” Makayla told WFAA. “I’m going to record it and make sure I have all my memories.”
When the providers returned, she recorded as they listened for the baby’s heartbeat, which was present. However, the employee told her she needed to stop recording. The next time she recorded, her baby had then been cut out of the amniotic sac. In her fifth video, an employee was seen performing chest compressions on the newborn.
“He said there’s a faint heartbeat, I was like ‘… she’s still here,’” Thomas remembered.
Eventually, Makayla and her child were transported to Medical City Hospital where doctors saved her baby’s life.
In a precious video, Makayla can be seen touching her baby’s head, saying, “God bless you Heaven, in Jesus name, amen.”
Heaven Grace is now fighting for her life, in a coma and vegetative state. Reports say her lack of oxygen due to the failure to cut her from the amniotic sac is the most probable cause, and she may never fully recover.
“We are just praying and praying and praying,” Thomas said.
“I definitely do believe if they had started reviving her right away when they came in the room and saw, this could have been a lot different,” Thomas said.
“I feel like they failed me.”
WFAA in Dallas interviewed retired obstetrician and gynecologist Dr. Milinda Morris, asking her about the situation.
“It was painful to watch the video, I’ll be real honest,” Dr. Morris said.
“It was obvious they didn’t know what to do with this baby,” she highlighted.
Dr. Morris said Heaven Grace should have immediately been taken out of the amniotic sac, been resuscitated, and given oxygen without hesitation. It’s unclear from the medical documents and videos we have how long exactly her baby was deprived of oxygen.
Dr. Morris said brain damage “starts to occur after just four minutes.”
“When these babies are delivered en caul with that amniotic sac around them, they’re like in a dry cleaner bag. There’s no oxygen there.”
Dr. Morris said freestanding ERs often lack the equipment and trained staff to respond to obstetrical emergencies.
“These freestanding [clinics]really owe these obstetrical patients some warnings,” she advised. “They should tell them upfront, there should be a sign at the desk that says, ‘If you’re an obstetrical patient, we’re not adequately equipped.’”
Please join us in prayer for Heaven Grace, that she has a full recovery and is able to live a happy and healthy Life! We also pray for Makayla and Joe in this horrific time, that the Lord is near to them in the midst of their suffering.
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