A first-time mom, 19, and her newborn died within hours of each other after the teen collapsed in her mother’s arms at home.
Mellodie-Ocean Jarman complained of feeling faint and dizzy as she headed to a routine pregnancy scan on January 31. She was sent home with medication, including antibiotics — but later that evening, her condition deteriorated, her family tells South West News Service via The Daily Mail.
At 11:20 pm, the teen said she was struggling to breathe and to see, prompting a call to emergency services. While they were waiting for an ambulance to arrive, Jarman collapsed into the arms of her mother, Justine Ryan.
Paramedics arrived at their home in the English town of Atherton and tried to revive Jarman with CPR. They rushed her to the hospital, where she underwent an emergency C-section to deliver daughter Athena-Pearl — seven weeks early.
Athena-Pearl was born at 12:32 am on February 2 — but approximately 80 minutes later, Jarman died.
“She was a healthy 19-year-old with no health complications, so we just can’t comprehend what has happened,” her uncle, Steven Darby, told the outlet. “At the moment, we don’t know anything until an investigation determines the full extent of what happened.”
A few hours later at around 4 am, the family received a call that Athena-Pearl was “deteriorating.” Darby says that’s when the family spoke to a priest to have the newborn baptized.
Jarman’s partner, Daniel Darbyshire, 18, was given some time with his daughter before she passed away at 6:30 pm.
Athena-Pearl was placed in her mother’s arms, according to a GoFundMe set up to support the family. “After what felt like an eternity of anguish, we were given the gut-wrenching gift of placing Mellodie’s daughter in her arms as the machines fell silent. Together, they fell into an eternal sleep, bound by an unbreakable bond of love that transcends all.”
Jarman’s mother Ryan remembered her daughter as knowing “what she wanted in life and always found the banter and funny side in things. She was a real character.”
Darbyshire, Jarman’s uncle says, “doesn’t know what to do with himself, which is understandable in these situations. He’s lost everything.”
“Everything he’s planned, everything he’s wanted to do seems worse at the minute,” he told the outlet. “We’re supporting him the best we can.”
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