• Maura Gallagher had a healthy pregnancy when she went to deliver her twins via C-section on May 8, 2017, but she died from a brain bleed hours after giving birth
• Lawyers for the Gallagher family claim the doctors failed to assess and treat her risk for preeclampsia
• A jury recently awarded the family $22 million in a wrongful death lawsuit

On May 8, 2017, Maura Gallagher was a 38-year-old living in New Canaan, Connecticut, and expecting her first babies, a set of fraternal twins. That morning, she went to Stamford Hospital with her partner, Max DiDodo, to undergo what she and her family thought would be a routine cesarean section, to bring the twins — a boy and a girl — into the world. It was supposed to be a joyous day.

Instead, four hours after she delivered her babies, Maura suffered an inoperable brain bleed. Less than 24 hours after the surgery, her family made the heartbreaking decision to take her off life support, leaving her family shattered, and two newborns, Thomas and Lyla, without their mom.

Now, nearly eight years after her death, Maura’s family was awarded $22 million in a wrongful death suit, after jurors found that the hospital’s anesthesiologist and Stamford Anesthesiology failed to provide Maura Gallagher with “the applicable prevailing professional standard of care” during childbirth. Now the Gallaghers are speaking out about her story to prevent this type of tragedy from happening to another family.

Her older sister Erin O’Rourke recalls what happened on the day of the tragedy. “Maura was clearly in trouble,” she tells exclusively.

“She was hypertensive and had thrombocytopenia from the time she arrived at the hospital. There was clearly a risk for preeclampsia, which was confirmed during the procedure.”

According to the Cleveland Clinic, people with preeclampsia experience high blood pressure, protein in their pee, swelling, headaches and blurred vision. Hypertension, or high blood pressure, puts a person at risk for stroke, heart attack and other problems, while thrombocytopenia occurs when bone marrow doesn’t make enough platelets and makes it hard to stop bleeding.

Erin believes doctors’ neglect in screening for preeclampsia happens far too often.

“This is why telling Maura’s story is so important,” she says, adding, “Maternal mortality in the U.S. is a systemic failure for thousands of women, but it is also a story of medical professionals and hospitals, because of arrogance and sloppiness, failing to understand or acknowledge the signs that new mothers are in trouble.”

According to trial documents, when Maura went in for delivery, she presented with a recent onset of low platelets and a new onset of elevated blood pressure, despite having normal blood pressure throughout her pregnancy. The complaint says the two factors were indicative of pre-operative preeclampsia.

Daniel Thomas, a lawyer for the Gallagher family tells, “Maura’s pregnancy — being 38 and expecting twins — should have been considered higher risk. But how she showed up that morning — with elevated blood pressure and thrombocytopenia, or low platelets — were clear signs that something new and potentially dangerous was going on.”

The twins’ delivery initially went smoothly, but then Maura began suffering from nausea and her blood pressure remained alarmingly high.

According to court documents, she was given ephedrine to combat the nausea, which caused her already elevated blood pressure to increase further. When Maura began shaking and complaining of a headache and shortness of breath, her lawyer says it was dismissed as a panic attack.

“The saddest part of this story is that Maura was giving the doctors subjective complaints that were being dismissed as anxiety,” Thomas says.

Court documents state that the anesthesiologist failed to properly manage Maura’s blood pressure or formulate a plan to treat preeclampsia, and went ahead with the C-section before the preeclampsia testing results came back from the lab.

After the procedure, when Maura complained of shivering and nausea, she was given different cocktails of drugs to combat the headache, nausea, and artificially elevate her severe range of blood pressures but by then, it was too late.

Four hours and fifteen minutes after delivery, she suffered an unsurvivable, catastrophic brain bleed, and was declared dead the next day.

The Gallagher family sued the hospital in a wrongful death lawsuit. (Per court documents, the family previously settled with Maura’s OBGYN for an undisclosed amount.)

After a long, eight-year battle, in which the hospital claimed that Maura had a genetic underlying vascular malformation in the brain, jurors sided with the Gallaghers, concluding that Maura’s death was preventable.

While the decision vindicated the family, they say it will never be able to bring back their sister, partner, and the twins’ mother.

 “We’re glad that the jury agreed that Maura’s death was preventable,” said Maura’s brother John Gallagher. “This verdict means Maura’s children will know that human failure caused her death.”

Maura’s partner, Max, says that eight years later, the twins are thriving as they celebrate their 8th birthday, but the hole left by Maura’s loss can never be filled.

“Our beautiful children have a wonderful life. They are happy, funny, and smart, but I think about what Maura has missed and is missing all the time,” he says. “It is so unfair, but she is with them and all of us every day.”

 He adds, “We hope that telling her story will help prevent another tragedy like this — and spare the life of another woman and another family the same pain.”

 A spokesperson for Stamford Health tells, “Stamford Health is very sorry for the Gallagher family’s loss, and we extend our heartfelt sympathy to them. We are, of course, disappointed with the jury’s verdict, which we feel is entirely inconsistent with the evidence. We still believe that there is absolutely no basis for any claim that Stamford Hospital, nor any of its physicians, failed to provide appropriate care. Providing high-quality care is our top priority, and we continue to uphold that commitment.”

Meanwhile, Erin says the family will celebrate Maura this coming Mother’s Day the way they always do: Remembering the bright light that she was.

“Our love for Maura and her children provides all of us with the strength and resolve we need to keep going,” Erin says. “She was warm, funny, bright, and beautiful, and we can’t adequately express how much we miss her.”

Credit: people