A 54-year-old mom died in her sleep after a night out with friends, months after hospital doctors told her everything was “fine”.

Her daughter later uncovered a troubling detail in a photo her mom had taken of a medical test that appeared to flag a warning doctors did not act on.

Tracey McGrann, a mom-of-three from Birkenhead, UK, died during a late May public holiday weekend in 2024 after spending the evening celebrating a friend’s birthday at a local pub. The following morning, her 16-year-old daughter found her dead in bed.

Just three months earlier, Tracey had been told to go to the ER after an ECG carried out by her doctor showed concerns.

Hospital visit before her death

Tracey attended St Catherine’s Health Centre, complaining of chest pain, and was later instructed by text message to go straight to the ER after her ECG results were reviewed.

Because she suffered from a severe fear of hospitals, one of her close friends accompanied her to Arrowe Park Hospital in Wirral.

“My mum was someone who was scared of dying and terrified of hospitals, so for her to pluck up the courage and go was huge,” her daughter Leah McGrann told Medical Negligence Assist.

At the hospital, another ECG was carried out. Tracey photographed the result on the screen before being discharged minutes later and reassured that everything was “fine”.

It was later claimed that doctors failed to sign off the ECG during the busy public holiday period, despite the test having flagged an abnormality.

Tracey McGrann pictured with her daughters Alisha (left), now 17, and Leah (right), now 25. Credit: Medical Negligence Assist

Daughter discovers a detail in a phone picture

An inquest later concluded Tracey died from ischemic heart disease, a condition that causes narrowing of the arteries.

Around a year after her mother’s death, Leah discovered a photo her mom had taken of the ECG when it appeared in her phone’s memories.

“I was paying my mum’s contract, and saw that she took a photo of the ECG on the day she went to A&E - it popped up on her iPhone’s memories.

“I feel like my mum was watching over me, and she sent that memory to me so that I would see it. On her ECG, it read - ‘moderate T-wave abnormality, consider anterior ischemia’.

“When I saw that, I looked at the date to confirm that it was sent on the day she went to A&E - 9th Feb, 2024. The text message she received from her GP instructing her to go to A&E was sent on the same day. It all matched, and it even flagged up ‘consider ischemia’, which they did not.”

Family questions missed warning

Leah later raised the issue with the trust that runs Arrowe Park Hospital.

“They explained that they don’t keep copies of ECG results so there was no paper trail. The only way this was caught was because my mum took a photo of her reading at the time.”

Solicitor Rachel Donovan said: "The tragedy about this case is that it was so preventable. Tracey did everything right.

“In 2024, she started to suffer with chest pains and shortness of breath so she attended her GP and she underwent an ECG. This was noted to be abnormal, and she was referred to her local hospital’s emergency department, which was Arrowe Park Hospital, where the tragic misdiagnosis occurred.

“This has caused the family to lose their mother and grandmother, and a loved sister and friend. Lessons need to be learnt."

Featured image credit: Medical Negligence Assist

A hospice facility in Iowa has been hit with a $10,000 fine after a woman presumed to be deceased was found hours later gasping for air inside a body bag at a funeral home.

As reported by NBC News, a nurse at Glen Oaks Alzheimer's Special Care Center in Urbandale believed the 66-year-old woman to have died on January 3. As such, she was taken to a funeral home, the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals said in a report on Wednesday.

Per the report, the woman, who remains unnamed, was in hospice care from December 28 due to "senile degeneration of the brain."

At 6 AM on January 3, a nurse, having checked on the woman, found no signs of life.

Her "mouth was open, her eyes were fixed, and there were no breath sounds," the report says, adding that a nurse was not able to find the patient's pulse using a stethoscope.

The nurse placed her hand on the patient's abdomen and "noted no movement," according to the report. Presuming the woman had died, the nurse informed a relative and the on-call hospice nurse, the report adds.

"Hospice agreed to call the funeral home and did so," it says.

Over an hour later, a funeral director put the woman's body on a gurney "inside a cloth bag and zipped it shut," the report says. The director left with the supposedly deceased patient some minutes later, the report adds. Not long before 8:30 AM, it came to the attention of employees at the funeral home that the woman was actually still alive, says the report.

It adds: "Funeral home staff unzipped the bag and observed Resident #1's chest was moving and she was gasping for air. The funeral home then called 911 and hospice."

When EMS personnel arrived, they found the woman's pulse and said she had no eye movement or verbal, vocal or motor response, per the report.

The patient was transferred to the emergency room. When she was back at the hospice facility, she passed away with her family by her side two days later, the state report notes.

A spokesperson for the state Department of Inspections and Appeals has confirmed that the state fined the facility $10,000, which is the maximum amount permitted based on Iowa law.

A state citation from Wednesday said that the facility "failed to provide adequate direction to ensure appropriate cares and services were provided" and it essentially denied her "dignified treatment and care at end of life."

The executive director of the hospice facility said representatives have been in contact with the woman's family.

"We care deeply for our residents and remain fully committed to supporting their end-of-life care," Executive Director Lisa Eastman said in a statement. "All employees undergo regular training so they can best support end-of-life care and the death of our residents."

Featured image credit: LightField Studios Inc. / Alamy

The son of a woman arrested after allegedly turning off a fellow hospital patient's ventilator has spoken out.

Last month, a statement from a German public prosecutor's office revealed that a 72-year-old woman had been arrested for allegedly turning off a patient's ventilator on two occasions -- because she apparently didn't like the noise.

The statement reporting the alleged crime revealed that the woman was sharing a room with a 79-year-old patient at Mannheim's Diako Hospital in southwest Germany. As a result of the other patient's medical condition, they were reliant on a mechanical oxygen supply via a ventilator.

But police say that the 72-year-old woman - named as Hatun C. - switched off the ventilator just before 8:00PM on the evening of November 29 because she had become annoyed by the noise it was making.

And even after the hospital staff informed her that the patient - named as Hilal K. - depended on the ventilator, the woman once again turned the machine off around an hour later that same evening.

As a result, staff had to administer emergency resuscitation to the patient.

Tragically, Hilal K. later died from oxygen starvation complications.

Nevertheless, the 72-year-old woman was subsequently arrested on suspicion of attempted manslaughter and placed in a correctional facility while awaiting trial.

Now, Hatun C.'s son - 41-year-old Aydin C. - has told German media that his mother had struggled to "close her eyes because the oxygen device of her bed neighbor made such a loud noise", per the Daily Mail.

Describing the noise as being like that of "a tractor", the son added: "She was exhausted and high on medication. But she didn't want to harm the woman. It was an act of desperation.

"My mother worked as a toilet attendant for over 30 years, raised five children, and was never at fault.

"Now she is in prison as an old, frail woman with a serious heart condition."

The son then admitted that he is concerned that his mother is going to die in prison.

Explaining that his mother cannot read or write and only understands Turkish, the son says it would have been impossible for his mother to understand the instructions from the German hospital staff. Aydin C. argued that if his mother fully understood the function of the machine, she would "never have done something like this."

He then argued that staff should have either moved his mother to a different room or that his family should have been informed so that they could have intervened.

If Hatun C. is found guilty, she faces years in prison. An investigation is still ongoing.

According to Allina Health, some patients will pass away within minutes of turning off life support, while others may breathe on their own for hours or even days.

As the patient loses consciousness, they can experience what is often referred to as a death rattle - when mucous and saliva build up in the patient's throat. A rattling sound can occur when the patient loses the ability to clear their throat or swallow.

Featured image credit: Wavebreak Media ltd / Alamy

A paramedic in suburban Detroit reportedly failed to register that a young woman who was declared dead was, in fact, alive.

He then proceeded to mislead a doctor by phone about the individual's conditions, per state authorities and as reported by Yahoo News.

More on this unbelievable story in the video below: 

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A funeral home was the one to discover that 20-year-old Timesha Beauchamp was alive when she gasped while her body was being prepared for burial on August 23.

The details are found in a state license suspension filed last week against Micheal Storms, a Southfield firefighter and paramedic, who was part of a four-person team responding to the family home.

According to the publication, Beauchamp's family initially called 911 because of what appeared to be serious breathing difficulties. She has cerebral palsy.

State regulators, however, have denounced Storms' response as insufficient. Per the license suspension from the health department, Storms halted resuscitation efforts six minutes before getting permission from a doctor who was contacted by phone.

The report details that "At no point did [Storms] attempt to verify circulation or respiration" with a device such as a stethoscope, further adding: "The vital signs and description depicted to the physician were inaccurate."

Per ABC News affiliate WXYX, Beauchamp's godmother, Savannah Spears, said she "knew" she had felt a pulse in her goddaughter.

"I was holding her in my arms and as I prayed, I was feeling for a pulse," she said. "It was faint but I felt a pulse." Spears adds that paramedics dismissed her claims.

When Storms went back into the home after family members said the 20-year-old appeared to be breathing and had a pulse, he placed her on a monitor that "clearly showed" electrical activity and revealed she "was not deceased." Purportedly no action was taken.

"Both times (Storms) failed to recognize the patient was still alive," the report continues, detailing that Storms suggested that chest movement was normal due to her medication.

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The state also said that the paramedic in question altered his report when it was uploaded a second time to an incident database the next day.

Beauchamp wasn't taken to a hospital until Cole Funeral Home in Detroit called 911 several hours later. Funeral home staff claim that they saw her chest moving when they picked up the body at the Southfield home, according to the state, but Beauchamp's family said they were assured by the medical staff that she was deceased.

Beauchamp remains in critical condition at a hospital in Detroit.

The family's attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, has said that only her brain stem is functioning.

"This appears to be one of the worst cases of gross negligence that I've ever encountered,” Fieger said yesterday (September 3). "She wasn't dying or near death. Had they got her to the hospital none of this would have happened."

Due to COVID-19 precautions, Beauchamp's family are only permitted to spend one hour a day with her.

A new mother has tragically died just 10 days after giving birth, after falling ill while at a post office with her husband.

Krystal Pitt, 24, had welcomed her second child, a son called Toby, just 10 days earlier, and she and her husband Brayden Yates had been running an errand before going to visit their newborn at the neonatal intensive care unit at Perth Children's Hospital in Australia.

The pair were queueing up at the Noranda post office when Pitt told Yates she was experiencing chest pains, which he realized were likely to be a heart attack.

Yates told the West Australian: "I had her sit down and then pretty quick, she had a cardiac event."

Yates called the emergency services and began performing CPR on his wife, before setting up a defibrillator in an attempt to save Pitt before the ambulance arrived.

After being rushed to hospital, Pitt was placed into an induced coma, with medics initially believing the outlook was positive for her recovery.

However, Pitt's condition tragically deteriorated quickly, with reports claiming she had a pre-existing blood condition and she died on Saturday, reportedly from blood clots that had formed in her lungs and which had triggered the cardiac arrest.

The couple had already named their son Toby together, and the tot remains in hospital after being born four weeks premature, but Yates said his baby is doing well and it is hoped his can soon be released from the hospital and go home with his father.

The couple also has a 14-month-old daughter named Aurora together.

Yates has said that he hopes Pitt's story will help others remember to "cherish every moment" with their own loved ones.

He revealed: "The super crazy thing, the day before, we were talking about how precious life was and you never know when your last day will be. You've got to live to the fullest."

Yates has also vowed to make sure Aurora and Toby know how "amazing and caring" their mother was, despite being too young to make their own memories with their mom.

"I've got a heap of videos and photos that she recorded, especially during the first year of my daughter's life, so I can always share those with her," he revealed.

Yates's mother set up a GoFundMe to help support him and his two kids through the tough time, which has already racked up over $16,000 AUD, beating its $10,000 AUD target.

The fundraiser stated that "any contributions made will go towards helping Brayden and the children with a service for their Mum and ongoing costs with raising the children."

They added: "I would just like to express my gratitude to everyone for their ongoing support throughout this difficult time."

Yates said that Pitt was a "natural mother" after welcoming her first baby, and loved spending time with other mothers and sharing tips on parenting.

Our thoughts are with Krystal Pitt's family, friends, and loved ones at this heartbreaking time.

Featured image credit: Getty Images