Mercedes Wells arrived at Franciscan Health Crown Point in the early hours — in pain, contracting every minute. She’d called ahead, worried something was wrong. But after hours in the hospital, staff told her she wasn’t far enough along. According to her family, she never saw a doctor, only a nurse who insisted she was only about three centimeters dilated — so they wheeled her out, telling her to go home and wait.
Just eight minutes later, while driving toward another hospital, Mercedes went into full labor and gave birth to her daughter, Alena, right there in her husband Leon’s truck. He grabbed a blanket, caught their baby in the cab, placed her on her mom’s chest — all while still driving to the hospital in Munster, Indiana.
The hospital’s CEO, Raymond Grady, later called the now-viral footage “difficult to watch,” openly admitting the system failed Mercedes. In a new, stronger statement, Franciscan Health Crown Point confirmed they have terminated both the physician and the nurse who were directly involved in her care.
But firing staff wasn’t all — Franciscan also rolled out new policies: every woman in labor must now be evaluated by a physician before being discharged, and all labor-and-delivery staff will undergo mandatory cultural competency training. Grady apologized directly to Mercedes and her family, saying, “We failed to listen … compassionate concern is absent when a caregiver fails to listen to a patient who is clearly in pain and vulnerable.”
The family claims race may have played a role in how Mercedes was treated. They hired an attorney, insisting that she was dismissed not just dangerously, but unjustly. In their view, this wasn’t just a medical error — it was a systemic problem.
The Wellses say Mercedes spent nearly six hours inside the hospital, begging to stay. When she got home, or rather, when she was wheeled out, she was terrified. Leon had to step in, delivering their daughter alone on the side of the road, relying on nothing but sheer instinct and love.
Franciscan has reached out and says it hopes to meet with the family soon. For Mercedes, the emotional toll has been heavy. She told relatives she felt “violated, unheard, dismissed” — and now she’s demanding change, not just for her own family’s peace, but so no other parent ever has to go through what she did.
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