Student shares experience with SIDS, spreads awareness

Just two months after she had her baby, tragedy struck alumni Katie Herren and her family. No one was expecting such an awful fate for a beautiful creation.

Her baby, Melanee Skye Hurston, was only ten weeks old. Rocking her, holding her, feeding her — the only things Herren thought she would do as a mother, but sometimes life does not work out the way people want it to. Hurston died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome on Sept. 26, 2013.

“My boyfriend called me on his way to the hospital and said Melanee was unresponsive. I felt numb. I drove to the hospital, caring of nothing else but my baby. I even ran six red lights. When I got there, I didn’t even put my car in park; I just jumped out,” Herren said. “In the parking lot, I saw my daughter’s limp body being handed to a nurse.”

Herren, her boyfriend and her son waited eagerly and nervously. She did not expect such a painful event to happen so quickly.

“We held hands and prayed. We said ‘God please let her breathe’ over and over. Then a nurse came out and we asked if she was breathing. The nurse said yes. My boyfriend and I looked at each other and said, ‘she is not leaving the house until she is 50,’” Herren said.  

The hospital moved Herren and her boyfriend to a room by themselves. The doctor walked in and said that she was gone.

“I did not react at that point. I just looked at him and didn’t really know what to do. There was no emotion and then my mom called. A preacher told me I had to answer the phone and pretend like everything was okay. I had to tell my mom it was fine,” Herren said. “ [And] I did. I got on the phone and told her ‘everything was okay.’”

When French teacher Ann Williams arrived at the hospital after the phone call, she never had the slightest notion that her granddaughter was gone. Walking down those halls, she believed that nothing dreadful awaited her. It would just be a minor problem.

“I will never forget the moment that I walked in the hospital room and saw Katie holding Melanee. I thought everything was okay. I asked if she was going to be okay and the nurse in the room told me she had already passed away,” Williams said. “At that point, I almost fainted and a nurse had to put a chair under me to keep me from falling. I felt like all the air had been knocked out of me and my heart actually hurt.”

Herren and her family were taken to see Hurston. To Herren, it did not seem real; it was just a dream. She was hit by reality when they were taken back to the original room, where her loved ones awaited her.

“I opened the door [and] I saw everybody. Emotion overcame me. I fell down on the wall and cried. My boyfriend tried to comfort me,” Herren said.

Herren saw Hurston one last time to say goodbye. She held her with her boyfriend at her side and several loved ones looking over her.

“I felt like my heart was ripped open — almost like I was dying. I was not me anymore,” Herren said.

Herren says she will never forget about SIDS and the lasting effect it had on her family. She now focuses on her son. He is her main priority.

“My drive now is that I want to keep going because I want to make my child proud. My son, Peyton is the only reason I do what I do. I strive to make sure that every moment of Peyton’s life is filled with love and laughter. I want him to experience all the things that Melanee will never be able to,” Herren said.