Helen Mondragon Giordano

On August 18, 1999, Helen Mondragon Giordano died at a Taos, New Mexico hospital. The mother of one, she was 20 weeks pregnant at the time of her death. She went into very premature labor and gave birth very quickly in the emergency room. Immediately following the birth, she had a profuse hemorrhage and died in eight minutes.

Her previous birth had been by cesarean section, her uterus having been sutured in one-layer, only nine months earlier. Altogether, she had had 3 cesareans previous to this birth. The cause of the profuse hemorrhage she suffered was the implantation of a placenta percreta (a very rare and dangerous form of placenta accreta), which is believed by some pathologists to be associated with the one-layer method of suturing. The physician who tried to save her life was found not to be at fault for her death.