Mom Speaks Out After Healthy Baby Died Within 48 Hours After Hospital Missed Infection

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Like most expectant parents, Ginger McCall and her husband, Omar Quintero, couldn’t wait for the birth of their baby daughter. The Salem, Oregon, couple had so many plans for their lives together. “We dreamed of climbing mountains with Evi, of sharing our love of nature with her,” McCall tells People. “Our pregnancy announcement was a picture of us atop a mountain with our 10-week sonogram.”

After Evi's birth, it seemed like the healthy little girl had a bright future.

But their world was shattered when their 7-week-old daughter, Evi, died of an undetected infection.

Ginger McCall

On the morning of March 15, little Evianna Rose, who they call Evi, began showing worrying symptoms that her mom immediately noticed. For one, her baby was making an odd sound that McCall found troubling.

“As soon as I woke up, I could tell something wasn’t right,” said McCall, 35. “She was making a distinctive sound, like a weak cry or grunting."

The Salem, Oregon, mom now knows those distinct sounds are a symptom of the bacterial infection Group B strep and quickly took action.

Ginger McCall

She rushed Evi to Salem Hospital’s emergency room, but doctors there allegedly didn’t think the baby’s symptoms were too alarming. “The doctor ran some basic blood tests. But all they did was give her a saline drip IV and some Tylenol,” McCall said.

“They told us it was a virus and sent us home," she said.

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Even more concerning to Evi's parents is that doctors allegedly failed to take note of something in McCall’s medical records — that she had tested positive for Group B strep when she was pregnant. This put her infant at risk of “late onset Group B strep,” which is when infection can occur up to several months after delivery because of a baby’s underdeveloped immune system.

“Having a mother who tested positive for Group B strep is an increased risk factor for late onset, which is why the doctors should have listened when I told them that I had tested positive,” the first-time-mother said.

But doctors told McCall not to worry, and insisted that Evi was suffering from a “normal” virus that would help boost her immunity.

Ginger McCall

"She was making this really terrible mewing, moaning noise. Like a kind of repetitive, it was like a weak cry," McCall told Fox 12 Oregon. “I will never forget the nurse saying to me: ‘This is her immune system getting stronger. This is her getting stronger.’” 

The hospital discharged Evi at 1 p.m. But just hours later, Evi was getting worse and McCall took her to the pediatrician. According to McCall, “the doctor looked pretty concerned” about the infant’s uncontrollable vomiting.

“He said, ‘You need to get her back to the emergency room right now,’” she said.

Ginger McCall

Evi was taken back to Salem Health, where doctors examined her again and found that she had meningitis and sepsis. The infant was then transported to OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland.

"Every minute that they delayed, every minute that they didn’t conduct the tests that they should’ve conducted, every minute that we spent driving between places. That mattered. It mattered," McCall said.

“They indicated pretty early on that they were concerned about her brain,” she said. “They told us that she had sepsis which was affecting her breathing and her heart and meningitis was potentially affecting her brain.”

Despite the best efforts of the doctors there, Evi died on March 17 at 6:08 a.m., just two days after McCall noticed her baby's cough.

Ginger McCall

The grieving parents made sure their daughter experienced grace in her final minutes. “We wanted to surround her with love, so we took her outside in the hospital courtyard so I could hold her as her father and two grandmothers surrounded her. I wanted her to be wrapped in loving arms, not covered in monitors and wires,” said McCall. “We wanted her last moments to be under the open sky."

Now, McCall is hoping to raise awareness for late-onset GBS and meningitis.

Ginger McCall

“One other relevant fact that came out when I looked this week at Evi's medical file was that she had sepsis the first time she was in the hospital,” McCall tells CafeMom. “The doctor missed that, as well as the meningitis. I think it would be really helpful for doctors and parents to have greater awareness about the symptoms of sepsis as well as meningitis and Group B strep.”

Instead of grieving in silence, this brave mother is speaking out to help others avoid the devastation of losing a baby to the infection that took their daughter’s life.

“That’s the only thing that can make this into something redeemable, is if someone else can be saved,” she said. 

“I want there to be changes to protocol, so women are given more information at early intervention points,” she added, referring to the fact that Group B strep comes on very quickly and it can take only a day or two for babies to become critically ill.

“From the minute we showed up at the ER the first time, every minute mattered,” she said.