An Adelaide Indigenous man is trying to bring his wife and stillborn baby home from Las Vegas after they died suddenly while the couple were on holiday.
John Shaw and his wife, Natasha Angie, had been in the US for three weeks and were finishing their holiday in Las Vegas when Ms Angie, who was 26 weeks pregnant, started to feel unwell.
The 28-year-old mother of three was admitted to hospital and diagnosed with a rare form of pre-eclampsia called HELLP syndrome, a life-threatening pregnancy complication that involves the breaking down of red blood cells, elevated liver enzymes and a low platelet count.
Her son was delivered stillborn in an emergency procedure, but it was not enough to save her life and just two days later she died.
Mr Shaw told US television station his wife had “never had a problem with any other pregnancy.”
“Every organ was fine in her body,” he said.
“We never thought this would happen. We thought it was just migraines.”
Mr Shaw told the broadcaster Ms Angie had migraines and abdominal pains for three days before she became unresponsive early on Saturday morning.
“On the ambulance bed, when she was taken out of the room, I told her ‘I love you’,” he said.
“She said ‘I love you’ back to me twice and that were the last words that came out of her mouth.”
Mr Shaw said he got to hold his stillborn son “for a few hours and get some memories done with him and then he was brought to the morgue”.
“I’m bringing them back home in a box, which I never thought would happen.”
HELLP syndrome can affect women in their third trimester.
The include headache, swelling, changes in vision, abdominal or chest tenderness, bleeding and nausea.
Mr Shaw said his family and their three children were able to say their goodbyes via a video call.
“My little baby is only three,” he told KSNV News 3.
“He didn’t know what was going on. Natasha always wanted the best for our children.
“She wanted to give them things she didn’t have growing up and I want to be able to do that for them, for her.”
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Mr Shaw is now trying to raise enough money to bring the bodies of his wife and son home for burial through a and to pay their US medical costs.
More than $15,000 has already been raised.
The reported the couple’s insurance may not cover the repatriation of the baby and that any money leftover would go to the couple’s three children Kyeesha, 10, Josiah, 8 and Jacquon, 3.
Mr Shaw called on pregnant women to be aware of the condition.
“If you’re pregnant and you feel those symptoms go to the doctor because it happens all to quick,” he said.
“I’m bringing them back home in a box, which I never thought would happen.”
