Shantell Roberts can remember the exact time her mother called her at work to say that she’d found Roberts’ 1-year-old daughter unresponsive in the bed. It was 9:48 a.m. – and the moment everything in her life changed.
Tylour Marie had been sick with a fever and vomiting, but doctors didn’t seem too worried, telling Roberts to come back in three days if her daughter hadn’t improved. At the time, it all seemed fairly routine.
But the viral infection doctors thought Tylour had turned out to be MRSA pneumonia, and, despite doing everything doctors told her to do, on the day after Valentine’s Day in 2011, Roberts’ baby girl died.
Shantell joined us in the BalmShelter to talk about her beginnings as an advocate, as well as how she started Touching Young Lives., a nonprofit focused on public education for best practices in infant care.