Reese was sedated and placed on a ventilator. Not long after that, she went into respiratory code and had to be flown to a Houston’s Texas Children’s Hospital.
It was December 1st, 2020, when Reese went into surgery to repair the holes in her trachea and esophagus.
The surgery was a success, and a week later, Reese was removed from the ventilator. Trista ducked out of Reese’s room to get something to eat for dinner, but by the time she came back, Reese was close to dying and had to be put back on the ventilator.
Facebook; pictured above Reese smiles
Over the next few weeks, Reese was removed from the ventilator again, only to be put back on because she couldn’t breathe on her own.
She then underwent two more surgeries to have a tracheostomy tube placed. The following morning, Reese sadly passed away on December 17th.
After Reese’s tragic passing, Trista knew she had to advocate for change so no other parent had to suffer a loss like this.
“I remember being on the floor begging God. ‘Please don’t take her. Not my baby.’ This time she was lifeless, she was blue, and she was no longer with us,” Trista wrote on a change.org petition she started.
“I can’t begin to describe the feeling of losing a child or the pain we live with every day…”
Trista is now advocating for national legislation that would make it mandatory for button batteries to come with 2 important things.