A beloved mum tragically died five weeks after the birth of her youngest when she suddenly collapsed at home after suffering a ‘preventable’ blood clot, leaving the family with just one cherished picture together and calling for more awareness of the risks post-pregnancy.
“Fun and loving” assistant mental health nurse Samantha Crosbie, 32, was overjoyed when her beautiful baby girl Betty was born on February 9, 2020, after a long pregnancy dealing with pelvic pain which meant she struggled to move around. Only one picture was ever taken of Samantha with her three children as her life was cruelly cut short on March 16 that year after just five precious weeks as a family of five.
She suddenly collapsed at her home in Redhill, Surrey, while her husband, scaffolder Paul, 38, and their eldest children, Stanley, then five, and Evelyn, then nine, were at the cinema. As she lost consciousness, Samantha had been on the phone to her mother, Jane Parker, 62, who began to frantically shout her daughter’s name down the phone before calling for an ambulance, which rushed her to the hospital.
Devastatingly, Samantha died the next day, after tests revealed she had suffered a pulmonary embolism (PE) – a blocked blood vessel in the lungs and heart which occurs when a blood clot, usually from the veins of the legs, breaks off and travels to the lungs. Though rare, it is something that pregnant women are at increased risk of.