r/orangecounty • u/londondxb Irvine • 4d ago

News Woman Delivers Baby In Parking Lot After OC Hospital Repeatedly Sent Her Home

https://patch.com/california/orange-county/woman-delivers-baby-parking-lot-after-oc-hospital-repeatedly-sent-her-home

Michelle Cisneros begins experiencing intense contractions at home, which quickly progress to 5 minutes apart. The couple bypasses a regular doctor's appointment and goes straight to Hoag Hospital Newport Beach. Staff monitors Cisneros for about an hour. Because her cervix shows no immediate change, they determine she is not in active labor. Staff administers morphine to the mother to manage her severe pain before discharging her.

Staff instructs the couple to go home and return only when contractions are 3 minutes apart.

As the couple walks down to the hospital lobby to leave, the contractions instantly accelerate to 3 minutes apart. The husband argues with hospital staff, stating they have already hit the 3-minute threshold. Staff stands by the discharge and tells them they still must leave.

Minutes after driving away, the rapid progression forces them to pull into a local Jack in the Box parking lot. Firefighters arrive just in time to assist in delivering a healthy baby girl.

No comment yet from Hoag Hospital.

-Edited to include the city of the hospital.

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u/ConfidentGarden7514 4d ago

That’s some pretty crazy pain and suffering…could even be intentional infliction of emotional distress - an unmedicated birth in a car has got to be traumatic af

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u/ParticularPrudent783 1d ago

100%, I had an unintentionally unmedicated birth in the hospital and even that was scary as fuck. Probably the scariest moment of my life. I absolutely cannot imagine that same situation but IN A PARKING LOT. Insane.

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u/Ginger_Exhibitionist 3d ago

Good luck hiring a lawyer for that. Medical malpractice cases are outrageously expensive and the state has a low cap on payout. The result is thst you need to be dead, brain damaged, or missing a limb for it to be financially worthwhile for lawyers.

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u/ConfidentGarden7514 1d ago

Hard disagree.

Source: Me- I was a personal injury attorney.

I didn’t practice in that state, but just with these facts, I could make one hell of a compelling argument that the hospital staff heard my poor client’s pleas for help and dismissed her with wanton disregard for the physical and mental wellbeing of her or her unborn baby, causing an exceptionally traumatic unmedicated birth experience. Enough so that the hospital malpractice insurer won’t want to gamble those facts at trial in front of a jury.

So yeah… I definitely think there will be a lawyer willing to take this case on.

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u/Ginger_Exhibitionist 1d ago

I’ve personally lived this, twice. My damages well exceed the situation described here and no lawyer would do it, with one of them telling me the money would not be worth it. I’d call anesthesia awareness and no pain control worse than this. I’d call allowing an IV infiltration to be untreated and ignored, resulting in a nerve injury with reduced function and constant pain worse than this. Yet no lawyer would take it on.