Almost exactly 29 years ago, the front page of the Indianapolis Recorder carried a harrowing story of medical neglect and a desperate fight for a newborn’s life. The Sept. 13, 1997 edition featured Desiree Self holding their critically ill infant daughter, Angel, inside the intensive care unit at Riley Hospital for Children.
Today, that same infant is a healthy mother of two preparing to graduate from nursing school with a dedicated mission: to become a neonatal intensive care nurse and provide hope to families facing the exact nightmares her parents endured nearly three decades ago.
“I was dead on arrival,” Angel Self told the Indianapolis Recorder. “I was Code Blue. They had me on life support for 10 days. I didn’t open my eyes until the seventh day.”
Angel’s survival story is defined by overcoming seemingly impossible medical odds. During her mother’s labor at Indiana University Hospital on Aug. 23, 1997, Desiree Self was allegedly abandoned by an attending nurse who had been instructed not to leave her bedside. Despite being heavily medicated and experiencing speech difficulties, Desiree Self attempted to alert the medical staff that she was actively delivering. The nurse dismissed her claims and walked out of the room.
A passing woman noticed the medical emergency, pulled back the hospital sheet, and discovered the infant’s head had already been delivered. Medical teams rushed into the room, but Angel was born cold, blue, and completely lifeless due to a severe lack of oxygen.
“My daughter was black, like a leather jacket,” Desiree Self said. “My baby was dead.”
Following immediate CPR, Angel was transferred to the ICU at Riley Hospital and placed on Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO), which is the highest form of life support.
“Every time I hear it, I get chills,” Angel said, recalling the story of her birth.
The machine took over the functions of her heart and lungs entirely. Born with two holes in her heart, Angel underwent two major bypass surgeries while covered. Doctors approached her parents on three separate occasions, advising them to disconnect the machine and prepare for the worst, predicting she would not survive the night.
According to Desiree, some medical staff cautioned that even if she did survive, she would face severe, permanent brain damage, rely on a wheelchair, and require full-time care with absolutely no quality of life.
“They wanted me to take her off of life support because they said she would be delayed,” Desiree Self said. “Now, she is going to school to become the same kind of nurse I needed during her birth.”
For months, her parents were forbidden from holding or touching her, forced to stand beside her bed and watch. But the grim medical consensus was shattered when her mother noticed a tiny movement in Angel’s foot. She was waking up.
Medical staff slowly began removing the life support machines and feeding tubes, eventually placing the infant into her parents’ arms. A photograph of the original front-page coverage has recently circulated on social media as Angel publicly shared her story of survival.
Angel said when she thinks of her birth, one biblical verse always calls out: Jeremiah 29:11, reading, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'”
Now, 29 years later, Angel has completely defied the dire predictions of her early days. As she prepares to enter the medical field, she plans to carry the physical scars of her early surgeries into the neonatal units as living proof of medical marvels, ensuring that no family feels entirely hopeless when the life support machines are turned on.
“I know I am not perfect, but I know I have a purpose,” Angel said. “You have to go through a test to have a testimony.”
Contact multimedia & senior sports reporter Noral Parham at 317-762-7846. Follow him on X @3Noral. For more, visit indianapolisrecorder.com
Noral Parham is the multi-media reporter for the Indianapolis Recorder, one of the oldest Black publications in the country. Prior to joining the Recorder, Parham served as the community advocate of the MLK Center in Indianapolis and senior copywriter for an e-commerce and marketing firm in Denver.
