April Ann Hopes

My aunt April Ann Hopes passed away last Tuesday . We found out that her life insurance policy we were paying on was way less than we expected. We are trying to raise donations so that we can have a proper funeral and burial for her. If you are able to contribute, it would be very much appreciated. Any little bit helps. Below is the story of how she passed away.

On February 27, 2024 while trying to keep my cousin (one of my aunt’s grandchildren) away from the door, I heard my cousin (her daughter) scream "Yall dropped my mom!" as she ran to the ambulance. 5-6 paramedics had dropped my aunt April Ann Hopes off the stretcher onto the hard ambulance floor while her heart rate was already accelerated due to lack of oxygen. She went into cardiac arrest and was already gone before reaching the hospital even though once at the hospital the doctor still tried to resuscitate her without success. Before the paramedics started driving to the hospital, they were outside for almost an hour, constantly reassuring us that everything was ok & they were just making sure she was secure on the ambulance floor because they said she was too big for the stretcher. They had already rolled her down our ramp outside in a wheelchair with her very badly diabetic feet dragging & her gown all the way up in the freezing rain and cold. The IV in her chest that her daughter and I were feeding antibiotics into every 8 hrs was getting wet even though it wasn’t supposed to. She wasn’t covered until they transferred her onto the stretcher outside. The reason for the ambulance coming was that due to lack of oxygen, she had fallen onto the bathroom floor in a sitting up position while leaving the bathroom. She couldn’t get up because she was having a hard time catching her breath and she already has problems with her knees & legs. My Aunt could barely walk to & from the bathroom because her oxygen level would drop and her heart rate would accelerate even while walking slowly with a walker.

The lack of oxygen was because 4 days prior when she was discharged, the hospital refused to provide an oxygen tank. The doctor and nurses on the previous floor she was on said she needed it but the nurse and social worker on the last floor she was on gave false oxygen levels. They wrote it was 98 even though she’s badly asthmatic with an already collapsed lung and they refused to redo the test with me there. This caused her insurance to not approve her oxygen tank saying that we would have to pay $300 a day if she wanted one. Just earlier while on the phone with my mom, when they had checked her oxygen level it was 91 or 92 at rest and just her walking 2 steps it dropped to 88. Even with an oxygen tank on, her oxygen level would drop throughout her entire hospital stay.

She had been in Jersey Shore University Medical Center from January 17th to February 7th. She came home for 1 night and by the next morning/afternoon, due to lack of oxygen, she was in the ambulance on the way back to the hospital in which she didn’t get back out until February 23rd.

Both times she was supposed to get discharged with oxygen, however, both times the hospital refused even though she clearly needed it. My aunt had to stay with my mom (her sister) when discharged because she could not survive walking up the stairs to her own apartment.

During her 2 stays at the hospital my aunt had Pneumonia, blood clots in the lungs, fluid in the lungs, Covid, a blood transfusion, and her lungs had collapsed a bit. They said it’ll take awhile for recovery for the collapsed lungs and it’s possible it’ll never be completely healed. Along with this, my aunt was a bad asthmatic, had uncontrolled diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis and kidney problems.

Unfortunately my aunt suffered and our family is grieving. We just want to lay her to rest so she can officially be at peace.