HOUSTON – The family of a single mother who was struck and killed by a car on her way home over the weekend is calling for reforms after they claim the hospital where she was taken failed to take her to the emergency room.
Marlene Baylon, 34, was walking home from a flea market in the Aldine neighborhood of north Harris County on Sunday evening.
She was hit by a car while walking near a road with no sidewalk on Hollyvale Drive, just a block from her home.
“(My) cousin called my husband and said, ‘I saw your sister walking down the street,'” said Byron’s sister-in-law, Yureimi Martinez. “But now we see a lot of police officers out there and ambulances and fire engines.”
When they got there, Byron was already in the back of the ambulance.
“She always carries her ID and her Social Security card, so the police told my husband her name,” she said. “They told my husband, ‘Don’t worry, she’s OK.’ She only had minor injuries, a broken hand and a few bruises on her body. That was it. And my husband told them she was going to HCA Northwest.”
When the family arrived at HCA Northwest Hospital, they told KPRC 2’s Gage Goulding that hospital staff did not have a patient by Baylon’s name.
“They told us to ask every 10 minutes,” Martinez said, “so we asked every 10 minutes, and they always said, ‘No, no, no.'”
Hearing the same answer, the family began calling and visiting other hospitals in the Houston area.
“We went to Memorial Hermann, we went to Ben Taub, we went to Lyndon B. Johnson,” Martinez said.
The answer they got was, “No.”
Byron seems to have vanished.
“It was really weird to us because she had ID,” Martinez said.
The family returned the next day and was finally able to speak to an HCA Northwest representative, who did not say “no.”
“I heard that two patients came in yesterday who had a similar accident.”
One of the two patients did not survive, and a nurse gave the family a case number and the phone number for the Harris County Coroner’s Office.
It was only after a call to the coroner that they discovered Baylon had died the previous day at 10:33 p.m.
“They told me she was here,” Martinez said. “We were just shocked by the news.”
Byron was identified by his identification card, his family said.
They’re sharing their story in the hope that the hospital can make a difference and prevent other families from having to go through what they did.
“The hospital denied everything, so it was just a lie,” Martinez said.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that Baylon was transported by ambulance to HCA Northwest.
KPRC 2 reached out to the hospital for an explanation, but they did not respond to our request.
The driver of the car that struck Byron was not charged.
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