Bruce McIntyre remembers the day he and his fiancée Amber Rose Isaac decided they wanted to start a family. They walked into a bookstore after having a date night in August 2019 when Amber spotted a children’s book called, “Rap ABC,” with a baby Kendrick Lamar and baby Tupac inside the cover.
Amber began reading the book aloud, then looked to Bruce and insisted they buy the book right then and there for their future child.
When Bruce watched Amber take a pregnancy test in September 2019 and it came out positive, it felt like their dreams were coming true.
“She was very excited to be a mom,” Bruce told the Bronx Times. “It was something she was looking forward to most in life.”
The couple never would have expected that just seven months later, Amber would die giving birth to her son Elias via an emergency cesarean section at Montefiore Einstein – just one day after Amber tweeted that she couldn’t wait to write a tell-all about her “incompetent doctors.”
Hospital hostility
According to Bruce, as soon as Amber’s gynecologist at Montefiore began to piece together that she was Black, pregnant and unmarried, their once normal doctor-patient relationship began to shift.
The doctor would ask the couple questions such as: Were the two going to get married? How long had they known each other? Did Bruce have any other kids?
“She would make these faces towards me and smack her lips,” Bruce said. “It really felt from that point on – from the very first visit – she wasn’t going to be giving Amber the attentive care that she deserved.”
Months went by, and Bruce noticed Amber’s health deteriorating. She had massive headaches, trouble breathing, and dizziness, but said the doctors brushed off their concerns as regular pregnancy symptoms.
By the time Amber reached her second trimester, Bruce said they began weighing their options and decided to get a midwife so she would have an advocate when speaking with her doctors.
The midwife then got Amber to get bloodwork done to figure out what was happening to the typically healthy 26-year-old. A day later, she called the couple back with surprising news – she couldn’t take them on as a client because Amber was a high-risk patient.
Through their student midwife, in late March of 2020, the couple learned that in December of 2020, Amber’s platelet count was in the low 90s – a healthy measure of if blood clots normally is typically above 150.
Bruce says they decided to act quickly. The couple made a complaint and transferred to Montefiore Einstein.
On April 17, 2020, Amber was called in by Montefiore Einstein to get updated bloodwork, according to Bruce.
Yet, when the couple arrived for the appointment, they were denied services and asked to come back later that day. When they showed up for a second time, a receptionist told the couple that Amber still couldn’t be seen because the gynecologist had not submitted the paperwork to the lab.
On Amber and Bruce’s third attempt to see a doctor, they finally got her blood drawn.
That next morning, the hospital called the couple and said Amber needed to go in for treatment immediately, but that it would only take a few hours.
“Due to all the information we were finding out, Amber was scared and needed people who were going to be there to advocate for her,” Bruce said. So when the couple showed up to the hospital, they asked if anyone could go up with her.
Because this was during Covid-19, hospitals weren’t allowing any family members, midwives or doulas to go inside with expecting mothers.
Amber was scared to death that something would happen to her, Bruce said. But hospital staff didn’t allow him, or her mother – who worked at the very same hospital for 25 years – to go with her.
Bruce continued to plead, he didn’t want her to go by herself after all the neglect they faced. Yet, the front desk sent security to confront him.
“She says, ‘Okay, Mr. Baby Daddy, you need to calm down. We need you to sit in the lobby. Matter of fact, you need to go wait outside in your car and wait for your partner to text you with updates,’’’ Bruce recalled.
After a number of tests the doctor had an update, Amber had HELLP Syndrome – a rare, life-threatening pregnancy complication affecting the blood and liver. Her platelet count, which was supposed to be over 150, was now in the low 40s.
Bruce got the text – the doctors were going to have to induce labor prematurely by 40 days.
An unthinkable outcome
As the doctors rushed Amber into emergency surgery, Bruce said he tried to remain positive for her. She was crying and having a tough time accepting that this was the reality of her first pregnancy. This wasn’t how she thought it would be like.
Bruce assured Amber, this would only take 20 to 30 minutes and then they would get to go home with their baby.
“I’m telling Amber, Everything’s going to be okay. These people are going to take care of you, because that’s all they keep telling us. And she kept repeating, ‘All three of us are going home,’” Bruce said.
Bruce kept his eyes glued to the window of the double doors as he watched doctors run in and out. He heard the intercom go off; all emergency personnel were called to Amber’s room.
No one ever checked in on Bruce, he said, or gave him any updates on Amber. All but one Black nurse, who assured him that his son was okay.
Soon after, Bruce says he slowly began to see doctors leaving Amber’s room, one by one. They were all white doctors, he added, who said that everything would be okay.
“Just from that, I was getting a little bit of hope that she was okay,’’ Bruce said. “Because why would you say that to someone who’s losing the love of their life.’’
Then Bruce saw a wave of Black doctors who left the room with disgust on their faces. All with their heads down, avoiding eye contact with him.
A nurse then urged Bruce to join the rest of their family when the head surgeon, whom he had never seen before, spoke to their family. Amber didn’t make it; she bled out on the surgical table and was dead.
Her family was in disbelief until the surgeon rolled in her body, which they covered in a sheet.
“That’s an image that’s going to be stuck with me forever,’’ Bruce said. “I’ve never experienced anything like that before.’’
Hospital staff urged Bruce to go home and get some sleep.
“I woke up around eight o’clock that morning, turning over and wanting to tell Amber about this very bad dream I had. Then, reality sunk in,’’ Bruce said. “And then I thought, I need to get my son out of that hospital. I do not trust those people around him.’’
Bruce went home, but returned to the hospital the next day to pick up his son. Yet, he said, hospital staff refused to discharge his son into his custody because Amber was no longer alive to attest that he was the biological father.
His son Elias, was released into the custody of Amber’s mother, Renita Isaac, who was living with the couple. It then took a DNA test and two years of going through surrogate court to be listed as his birth father.
In April of 2022, Bruce and Renita filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Montefiore and listed several doctors. The litigation is still ongoing, and a court date has yet to be set.
Montefiore declined to comment on Amber’s case in an email to the Bronx Times, citing pending litigation, HIPAA regulations and patient privacy rules.
Elias is now five years old, and the spitting image of his mother, Bruce said. He’s happy, cheerful and a bright light in their family. He knows Amber would have been an amazing and loving mother.
“As a Black woman, it doesn’t matter what your status is or what your accolades are. They’re going to treat you like you’re uneducated, they’re going to treat you like you’re undeserving.’’ Bruce said.
“She followed all the rules and all of the protocols and none of it mattered at all. It just came down to her skin color.’’
