From cardiac arrest to respiratory failure, a mother’s fight to stay alive after child birth

By Kara Burnett

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    BOWIE, Maryland (WMAR) — Aaliyah Walker’s full house came dangerously close to being incomplete.

“Every time I get thrown up on or have to change a blowout, I’m like, ‘Ew,’ but I’m also smiling through it because I’m glad I get to have this experience again. I was so close to not being able to have it,” said Walker, mom of 3.

Shortly after a C-section to give birth to twins, Walker’s health took a drastic turn. Her partner, Brady, was in the room with her as her eyes started to dim.

“When they were doing her tube removal, she looked at me and said, I can’t breathe,” said Brady Arnold.

Walker’s blood pressure dropped and they lost her pulse for four minutes.

“It was terrifying. I kept saying, this doesn’t make sense. This doesn’t happen to 26-year-old healthy people,” said Arnold.

A CT scan revealed blood clots in Walker’s lungs, pulmonary arteries, and heart. Once stabilized, she was transported from Sibley Memorial Hospital in D.C. to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

“The last thing I remember is my baby shower. It went back that far,” said Walker.

Due to a condition called ICU delirium, Walker has no memory of any of it.

“When I woke up, the whole team was amazing. There was a huge push not to give me all the details at once because that could be really damaging,” said Walker.

She spent 24 days in the ICU, facing sepsis, hemorrhagic shock, and respiratory failure. Thankfully, her doctors were able to avoid open-heart surgery and treat her. But while this was happening, her babies were still in the NICU, 48 miles away at the hospital in D.C.

“The NICU nurse, we still have their numbers from setting up Zoom calls. They still text us. Getting that support from healthcare, which is super rare, was amazing,” said Arnold.

The teams set up Zoom calls so the couple could see the twins.

“I guess it’s a blessing and a curse that we’ll never know the fear of sitting there, seeing them in the NICU, seeing all those wires attached to them,” said Arnold.

Walker shared her story on TikTok, with one post reaching 5 million views and counting.

“The amount of people that flooded in—whether it was themselves, their mom, or their sister. The stories almost mirrored mine in a lot of ways. I would have never known this community existed and I don’t think a lot of them would have known so many people have gone through what they went through as well,” said Walker.

She credits teams at both hospitals for saving her life, but also her partner Brady for making every tough decision when she couldn’t.

“People seeing Brady advocate for me so strongly, they reached further into their pools of people to say, ‘Hey, I want you to be as invested as I am so if something happens, you can be there’,” said Walker.

Walker says doctors believe she has Antiphospholipid Syndrome, an autoimmune disease that increases the risk of complications during pregnancy. According to the National Institute of Health, women with APS are five times more likely to have a stillbirth.

“For our community specifically, we sometimes lack the resources and the ability to ask the right questions because we don’t know what questions to ask,” said Walker.

While doctors run more tests, she’s soaking up every moment with her family.

“It feels like I’m complete again because I woke up feeling very incomplete and I feel good now,” said Walker.

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