It’s the moment nearly every expectant mother fears: screaming for help in a place designed to provide it like a hospital, only to be told to wait your turn. After pleading with triage staff while doubled over in pain for an extended period of time, one Long Island mother wasn’t met with a bed or a doctor; she was met with a cold bathroom floor.
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It was early Valentine’s Day around 2:15 a.m. when Leanna Rudolph went to the Katz Women’s Hospital in Glen Oaks to give birth to her second son Preston, according to ABC 7 New York. Despite telling nurses she was in pain multiple times, she was told she had to wait an hour to get a room.
“I’m in the bathroom bleeding,” Rudolph said. “No one came to check me. They said I was fine. I’m literally in a deep squatting position with the railing in the hallway. So now you see that. You see my positioning, all of these things. I’m like, ‘Why didn’t anyone just check me?’” After Rudolph went to the bathroom, that’s when her ignored warnings met a devastating, physical reality.
Rudolph recalled that after she went into the bathroom, her water broke, prompting her to scream for her partner, Paul, to get help. But for those critical minutes, the only response was silence.
It wasn’t until the echoes of her pleas finally drew a nurse to the door that the unthinkable happened. Paul watched their newborn son surrendering to gravity, dropping headfirst onto the cold hospital bathroom tile…on the labor and delivery floor.
Rudolph, who said she was “disappointed with the sense of urgency” on behalf of the hospital staff, said instead of basking in “the newborn phase of like, figuring out feelings and figuring out, like, cues and whatnot,” they were forced to figure out if baby Preston was OK.
Katz Women’s Hospital addressed the incident, telling ABC 7 New York how their facility “triages expectant mothers based on acuity. Any account of our patients feeling unheard and feeling increased distress while in our care is deeply troubling to us and we take all such concerns with the utmost seriousness.”
Now, the Rudolphs are demanding Katz Women’s Hospital to retrain their staff so others won’t endure the same trauma. Paul said despite their son being “born on a day of love,” there’s “so much hate that went on that day.”
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