She went to the hospital to have her baby. Now her husband is raising two kids alone
“We walked in for what we expected to be the happiest day of our life. And we walked straight into a nightmare.”
In the beginning, there was a man, a woman and a song.
Frankie Beverly’s “Before I Let Go” blasted over the sound system at a birthday party when Charles Johnson saw Kira. In that moment, he did something very out of character. He began singing along, serenading the stranger at first sight.
“She just cracked this smile that was like from wall to wall, and it was history,” Charles remembered.
Ten years later, only one of them would be alive to share their love story and the conversation it sparked about mothers, medical care and racism.
Charles Johnson shares the tragic story of his wife Kira’s death hours after giving birth.
Charles’ informative interview with MadameNoire:
MadameNoire (MN): What happened to your wife was terrible. I’ve seen reports that she died from hemorrhaging, but ultimately that was caused by negligence, right?
Charles Johnson IV (CJ): I’ve learned so much about this over the past almost three years doing this work, and what I’ve learned is in a situation where a woman is having a cesarean section, and she is healthy and the baby is not in distress, the cut time from when they make their first should be between 12 or 15 minutes, give or take 3-5 minutes, depending on the situation.
In a situation like Kira’s, where she’s had a previous cesarean, you should add an additional 3-5 minutes to cut through the scar tissue, all in that same procedure. We’re talking 15-20 minutes in that ballpark. Would you like to take a guess on what the cut time was on my son?
CJ: Less than two minutes.
CJ: In the process, [the doctor] lacerated [Kira’s] bladder. That’s where she was bleeding from [Writer’s note: There were 3.5 liters of blood found in Kira’s abdomen just before she died]. There’s so many layers of this. The way this has been described by medical experts [when] they reviewed the records, is that what happened to Kira was not a medical tragedy, it was a medical catastrophe. The reality of the situation is that in a hospital like Cedars-Sinai, with a woman that’s healthy, postpartum hemorrhage is not uncommon. Things happen. It wasn’t necessarily that. It was the continued neglect. It was everything, it was the failure to utilize hemorrhage protocols that they have in the state of California.
MN: How are you coping with your wife’s death today, especially while raising small children?
CJ: It’s different. For me, honest to God, they really are the blessing. I’m so grateful. They’re just the coolest little dudes. They really have all the best parts of their mom. It’s hard. You hear these statistics and they’re so horrifying. Like I say all the time, there’s no statistic that can quantify what it’s like trying to tell an 18-month-old that his mommy’s never coming home. You can’t try and get your head around trying to explain to a son that would never know his mom, just how amazing she was.[…]
MN: What steps did you take following this catastrophe as far as filing a complaint against the hospital? I’m asking you this because I think sometimes people feel like they just feel powerless when you’re dealing with a system as extensive as the medical industry.
CJ: That’s an excellent point. That’s one of the things, too, that I hope to not only empower but also help people understand what they’re entitled to, and empower them from a patient advocacy standpoint, too. We did a couple of things. I think people who are concerned, who have had situations, whether it’s just in childbirth or just medical, they feel like they may be a victim of medical malpractice, two things are critical. If the situation or circumstances present themselves, file legal action, which we did. There is a lawsuit against Cedars-Sinai hospital and the doctors that are involved in this. Also, file a complaint, make sure that you file a complaint with the local medical board against the doctors.
I have this acronym that I use, which is just ACT. We’ve got to have accountability, compassion, and transparency. Those are the big things that I feel are missing in medicine today. We’re working hard to make sure there’s a priority and a focus on them.
MN: Tell me about the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act.
CJ: The Preventing Maternal Deaths Act is the first-ever federal legislation to help put an end to this maternal mortality crisis. What it will do is give the CDC funding to create what are called maternal mortality review committees in all 50 states.
What those maternal mortality review committees will do is any time a woman anywhere in the country dies as a result of childbirth, they will go in and investigate the situation and collect all the data, very importantly, in a standardized way. The reality of the situation is this is a very, very complex problem, and in order to fix it, we really have to understand all the root causes. People think to standardize the data, but what does that mean, and how does that have an impact?
I’ll give you an example. We talk about Kira’s case. It’s very clear that this is a cut and dry case of a woman that died from preventable causes related to childbirth. However, when you look at this from a data collection standpoint and a standardization standpoint, when you look at Kira’s birth certificate, it simply says that she died from hemorrhage/shock. It says nothing on her birth certificate about her even being pregnant.
I’ll just be honest with you too. We know that the United States leads the civilized world in women dying in childbirth. We know that African-American women are dying four times as much as their Caucasian counterparts. One of the things that I’m –just my personal opinion in my field, this is not backed up by any scientific data — but I’m concerned that once we start collecting real data in a standardized way, that the statistics may even be more severe. I think there are women that are still slipping through the cracks because of the way that there just hasn’t been a focus.
A lot of women are suffering in silence or they’re having complications that are catching up with them a couple of months down the road that are stemming from their pregnancy, but they’re not even being viewed as maternal mortality statistics. Once we’re really taking a look at this, I think we’re going to have some data. I’m hopeful that, even though it’s scary, I am hopeful that this is going to be an important first step in turning this all around.
MN: What advice do you have for fathers who are with their partners in labor and may recognize signs that something is going wrong? How should they communicate?
CJ: I think first and foremost what I advise everybody to do is be very informed about understanding your patient bill of rights. Every hospital, every healthcare provider has a patient’s bill of rights. That will tell you exactly that you are indeed entitled to a second opinion and under what circumstances they are.
Be relentless about your concerns. Try your best to stay cool, try your best to stay level-headed, but if you see something and you’re concerned about something, make sure you escalate it. Do your best to have a resource outside of the team that’s responsible at the hospital that you can call.
If there’s somebody at your significant other or wife’s office that you can reach out to, have that number programmed into your phone so if the doctors and the staff are telling you one thing at the hospital and you’re not comfortable with it, have a resource that you can reach out to. One of the things we’re working on, too, is making sure at our foundation that we can help. People have access to those things when those times are critical, but yeah, just be involved. Be aware. Advocate relentlessly, if you can.
The other thing is ask questions. I know that logistics don’t always permit, but if you can make those check-up visits, go. Ask questions so that you’re all on the same page. If you don’t make the visit, interview your wife or significant other when she gets home about exactly what the doctor said. Be clear who those doctors are. When you get to the hospital, understand what the chain of command is. If there’s a nurse, know who the supervising nurse is. If you’re concerned, don’t be afraid to escalate the situation by any means necessary.
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