Margie LeVant

On October 24, 1998, Margie LeVant died at her home in Arlington, Virginia of an amniotic fluid embolism. Her water bag had ruptured just before she found herself unable to breathe. Her baby boy was delivered in the emergency room, but he had gone without oxygen for 45 minutes, and he was severely brain-damaged. Samuel LeVant Gilman, who lived 36 hours, was buried next to his mother. Margie LeVant was thirty-seven years old at the time of her death.

Her surviving son, Jonah, has severe cerebral palsy. Margie LeVant's work with children afflicted with cerebral palsy was being featured in a series entitled "Rescuing Jonah" in the Washington Post Magazine at the time of her death.

Margie LeVant was working on an Ohio Star quilt when she died. Her mother, Nancy LeVant used a piece of that quilt to honor her daughter in the Safe Motherhood Quilt.