The final day Byron Stribling spent together with his spouse, Harmony, was the Fourth of July in 2021. A terrific day, he at all times says.
The vacation fell on a Sunday. The congregation at their church in Belzoni, a small city within the Mississippi Delta, blessed the couple and prayed for a protected supply for Ms. Ball-Stribling. She was eight months pregnant and scheduled to have a C-section 5 days later.
At a barbecue, the Striblings feasted on ribs, collard greens, potato salad and cornbread. However round midnight, Ms. Ball-Stribling threw up and stated her chest damage. “She wished to put down, however I informed her, ‘We have to go someplace,’” Mr. Stribling, 32, recalled.
Ambulances within the Delta are unreliable, and the one hospital in Belzoni closed over a decade in the past. So that they piled into his automotive and sped towards Yazoo Metropolis, Miss., the closest city with an emergency room, about 30 miles away.
On the way in which, Ms. Ball-Stribling had a seizure. Panicked, Mr. Stribling known as 911. The dispatcher informed Mr. Stribling to tug over and begin CPR, so he slammed on the brakes and pumped her chest on the facet of the street till an ambulance got here. However he already knew he had misplaced her, there on the shoulder of Route 49-W.
What killed Harmony Ball-Stribling? The demise certificates says the reason for demise was issues of pre-eclampsia, a life-threatening blood stress dysfunction that may develop throughout being pregnant, exacerbated by hypertension and hardening of the arteries. However that’s not the entire story.
