Woman stops breathing at Cleveland abortion center

A 911 call recording and video shot by a pro-life activist reveal paramedics picked up a 22-year-old woman from a Cleveland abortion center last week after she went unconscious and stopped breathing. Although the emergency crew took her to a local hospital, it’s not clear whether she ever regained consciousness.

Operation Rescue, which obtained the audio and video recordings from March 21 and posted them online, is calling for an investigation to determine what happened to the woman. WORLD was unable to confirm whether she died.

On the 911 call recording, a female employee from Preterm, an abortion facility in downtown Cleveland, tells a dispatcher, “I have a patient at our clinic who is not breathing.” She explained there were “doctors and nurses” performing CPR on a 22-year-old, who was unconscious.

Paramedics arrived a few minutes later, and remained inside the abortion center for about 20 minutes before they carted the patient outside on a gurney. A pro-life activist outside the building captured video of the medical crew loading the woman into the ambulance.

The ambulance took the patient to University Hospitals Case Medical Center. A computer-aided dispatch transcript listed the patient code as “Cardiac or Respiratory Arrest/Death.”

Twenty-eight minutes passed between the 911 call and the ambulance’s arrival at the hospital. It is not clear whether the patient ever revived. Her identity is unknown, although the pro-life activist who took the video, Dale Henkel, a pastor, described her as African-American.

A spokesman from Case Medical Center did not release any information but referred me to the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s office. A spokesman for the medical examiner’s office said no body matching the patient’s description had arrived there.

Cheryl Sullenger, an Operation Rescue policy advisor, said her group has placed ads on Facebook in hopes of soliciting more information from the woman’s friends or relatives. “We have filed complaints with the Ohio Department of Health and the Medical Board,” she said, adding that the case warrants an investigation.