Baylor’s Story

In early June, 2022, our oldest son attended a farm camp at a large, tourist attraction farm in middle
Tennessee. On the final day of camp, we attended “family day” with all of our children ranging from
ages 6 to 3 months. We spent time exploring the farm and petting baby goats. Our son Baylor was
2 years, 8 months old and loved getting a chance to pet the goats. 

The week after our son came home from the farm camp, he started having diarrhea. He was eating
well, acting normal but having some stomach aches and frequent bathroom breaks. I assumed we
had a bit of the stomach bug. He returned to his normal, healthy self after a few days.

The following weekend Baylor started having diarrhea. We assumed he also had the same stomach
bug. From Sunday until Tuesday, Baylor continued to play and eat but definitely was showing signs of
an upset stomach. Tuesday night into early Wednesday, June 22nd, Baylor was in pain and we also
noticed some blood in his stool during a diaper change. 

Wednesday morning we took him to the pediatrician. I mentioned that we now had two sick boys
since attending the farm camp and visiting the farm. She expressed her concerns of STEC right away.
She ordered a stool sample and asked me to closely monitor him.  Wednesday evening, our pediatrician
called to check and I told her Baylor was still having diarrhea, was very tired and wasn’t drinking much water.
She recommended we head to the emergency room just to make sure he wasn’t dehydrated.
We went to our nearby children’s emergency room. They gave Baylor IV fluids and decided
to do an abdominal ultrasound because he was experiencing a lot of stomach pain.

The ultrasound showed a concern for intussusception, so they had Baylor transported to a children’s
hospital where they could perform a procedure to correct the intussusception. We spent 12 hours in
triage and finally Baylor had another ultrasound done where it showed there was no
intussusception, it may have corrected itself, which can happen. 

Thursday through Saturday, Baylor spent his time trying to eat food, watching movies on his iPad,
receiving IV fluids, and just being monitored. We also received the test results for the stool sample
confirming Shiga Toxin-producing E. coli. The medical staff caring for Baylor was optimistic that he
just needed a few days to let the E. coli pass through his system. 

On Saturday night Baylor spiked a high fever. We were very concerned but the medical staff assured
us that this was just the E. coli passing through his system. Baylor was still in pain and they continued
to do ultrasounds of his abdomen. The final ultrasound, taken in the very early hours of Sunday, June
26th, showed “debris” in his abdomen but that information was not passed on quick enough to our
medical team. Around 8:00 a.m. on Sunday morning Baylor’s heart monitor alerted the kidney floor staff
that he was experiencing a cardiac arrest. A medical team rushed into our room and struggled to stabilize
Baylor. Baylor was taken to the PICU floor and placed on an ECMO machine. They told us he would
be on the ECMO machine until his body fought off the infection. On Sunday afternoon we were

informed that Baylor’s body was failing. Even though he was hooked up to multiple machines
keeping him alive, he didn’t make it through the night. 

Nick and I will never get over the pain that we felt as they told us that Baylor suffered a brain death.
There were a lot of miscommunications, questioning, shocked doctors and nurses trying to figure out
what had happened in the last 10 hours. We left the hospital and our entire world was shattered.

24 hours earlier, we were discussing when we might be able to take Baylor back home to be with his siblings.
Instead, in the blur of nightmarish events, we were leaving the hospital without our healthy, brown eyed,
music loving boy.  Our hearts were shattered and our world had come crashing down on us. We were also
struggling with the lack of answers and transparency from the hospital. What went wrong? What was missed?
What could we have done differently as parents? We spent almost a year digging and searching for
answers.

In February of 2023, after reviewing multiple medical expert reports, we found out that during
Baylor’s cardiac arrest he was incorrectly intubated by a “fellow” (doctor in training). The intubation
was placed in his esophagus instead of his trachea. It was unrecognized for more than 5 minutes,
until a respiratory technician noticed signs of the failed intubation. They used an X-ray cart to
confirm the incorrect intubation, then preceded to correct the mistake.

It was an estimated that 10 minutes passed with Baylor being without oxygen. After he was
intubated correctly, he was taken to the PICU. They used multiple machines (ECMO, dialysis) to
try to bring him back.
We never knew the horrendous events that took place during the failed intubation. His medical
records show very scattered reports and miscommunications with the medical team was obvious.
Through the process of going through Baylor’s 600+ pages medical records, there seems to be notes
of a perforated bowel, causing undiagnosed sepsis, which might have cause Baylor to go into cardiac
arrest. The lack of oxygen during the erroneous intubation was the ultimate cause of death. 
So much can go wrong with Shiga Toxin producing E. coli, especially with these little bodies. Baylor
was such a healthy, lively, bright light in our family. We miss him every day and still struggle to pick
up the pieces of our broken hearts. My passion, as a grieving mom, is to not only share his story to
spread awareness of this deadly infection that can be so easily spread, but also to share my true
feelings of life after child-loss.

The farm where we contracted the infectious disease was called Lucky Ladd Farms. Weeks and
months after Baylor’s death we worked with the Tennessee Department of Health to try to connect
the dots, as to how the E. coli was spread.

The baby goats and surfaces areas around the farm matched with the same specific type of E. coli
0157:H7 that Baylor had.  Baylor, our other son, Parker Stine and 10 other children were part of the
Lucky Ladd Farms E. coli Outbreak. The final reports were release publicly in October, 2022.