( 4UMF NEWS ) Speeding Husband Kills Pregnant Wife In Labor On Way To Hospital:
A 22-year-old woman in labor has been killed in a car crash Sunday night while being driven to a hospital in North Carolina by her husband to deliver their baby boy, who survived the accident.
Megan Riggans, from Staley, North Carolina, and her husband, Brian Casey Riggans, were in the 2800 block of Greensboro-Chapel Hill Road shortly before 10pm when their car hydroplaned, careened off the side of rain-soaked road and slammed into a tree.
Trooper J.R. Zachary with the North Carolina Highway Patrol told the Burlington Times-News that the couple were on their way to UNC Chapel Hill Hospital because the 22-year-old victim was having contractions, which could possibly explain why she was not wearing a seat-belt at the time of the collision.
According to Megan’s Facebook page, the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University graduate was expected to give birth on September 27, which means that Riggans was nearly four weeks away from her due date at the time of the crash.
Zachary said because Riggans, who was sitting in the passenger seat, was not buckled in at the time of the crash, she was flung about the interior of the vehicle.
When first responders arrived on the scene, the mother-to-be was unconscious. Riggans was rushed to Alamance Regional Medical Center, where doctors delivered her baby, a boy.
The mother was later pronounced dead from her injuries, but the newborn was breathing and still had a pulse.
He was transferred to UNC Hospital. In a phone interview with the Daily Mail, Zachary said the child spent eight minutes with his oxygen supply cut off, but doctors are not sure at this point what effect it has had on his brain activity.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the newborn’s condition was listed as stable.
