Sunday, April 27, 2025

April 27, 1990: Mom Bleeds to Death in Front of her Children

 SUMMARY: Sandra Milton, age 28, bled to death in front of her three children on April 27, 1990 after an abortion performed by Carl Armstrong at Toledo Medical Services in Toledo, OH.

B&W high school yearbook photo of a smiling white teenage girl with long hair parted in the middle
Sandra Milton

On April 27, 1990, 28-year-old divorcee Sandra "Sandy" Earle Milton underwent an abortion, performed by Dr. Carl Armstrong at Toledo Medical Services in Ohio. (Armstrong is John Roe 67 in Lime 5.) Neither her ex husband nor her parents had known that she was pregnant.

Who Was Sandy Milton?

Sandy, who came to the US from England with her family when she was a toddler, had attended Fremont Ross High School and the Vanguard Vocational Center.

A high school friend, John McKeever, reported that Sandy would return home at her 10 pm curfew then sneak out her bedroom window and stay out most of the night. "We used to have a helluva lot of fun. We didn't really do a whole lot. Sometimes we'd just go downtown and watch the traffic go by."

One day John introduced Sandy to his girlfriend, who had an older brother named Tom Milton. The two couples went on a double date and the romance started. Sandy was only 15 years old. 

Tom Milton admits that Sandy's parents never approved of him, and that this likely made him even more attractive to the rebellious teen. 

Their first child, a son, was born in October of 1979, and the couple married in June of 1980, when Sandy graduated from high school. She was 18 and Tom was 20. They had two more children together. 

Friends described Sandy as "always happy, always bubbly. She always had places to go and things to do. They were ordinary activities but Sandy enjoyed them: card games, ceramics classes, pizza, and movies.

But Sandy was not happy about her life . She divorced her husband in February of 1987, alleging abuse over the seven years of their marriage. She moved from Fremont to the village of Green Springs, where she took at job on the assembly line of the Whirlpool appliance factory in Clyde. She and Tom had little contact after that -- just enough to arrange for Tom to pick the children up for visitation.

Sandy's Life Comes to an End

The weekend before April 27, 1990, the slender Sandy told her mother that she was going to lose 20 pounds. Sandy's mother didn't make a connection between this comment and a pregnancy that her daughter was planning to abort.

Sandy went to Toledo Medical Services on the morning of April 27. The abortion was performed by Carl Armstrong at 10 a.m., and Sandy was discharged shortly thereafter for the 90-minute drive home.

The babysitter stayed with Sandy and her three children, ages 10, 7, and 5, for three hours as the young mother slipped in and out of consciousness and suffered pain and abdominal swelling. Twice the alarmed babysitter called the clinic, but was told that the symptoms were normal. The third time the babysitter called the clinic, she got no response at all, and summoned an ambulance. Sandy was pronounced dead on arrival at Fremont Memorial Hospital at 6:01 p.m..

Tom had come to the house to pick up the children on that afternoon, but nobody was home so he went fishing. His brother tracked him down to tell him that Sandy was dead.

The Findings

Dr. Carl Armstrong
The medical examiner performed an autopsy on Sandy's body and found a one-inch uterine perforation. Her abdomen was full of blood. She had bled to death internally. Seneca County Coroner Dr. Samuel Lowry estimated that Sandy had been 22 weeks pregnant. This is a particularly interesting observation, since Toledo Medical Services claimed that they would not perform abortions at 18 weeks or later. 

Dr. David Miller, an ob/gyn in Bowling Green, OH, pointed out that in Ohio, each department of a hospital is inspected separately by the state and is regulated. "That is not true regarding abortion," he pointed out. In fact, the people at abortion clinics say that if they had to comply they would go out of business."

Carol Dunn, president of the Center for Choice II abortion facility in Toledo, made excuses for why abortion clinics didn't adhere to safety standards. "It's more or less a doctor's office.... It's a simple procedure and we want to keep it that way." She scoffed at safety standards, saying "We don't have doors that are wide enough to fit a gurney. We don't have hospital carts. People walk around here, not ride." The idea that EMS would need to get a gurney through a doorway if a woman suffered a life-threatening complication clearly wasn't worth her consideration. 

As for the three motherless children, it's unclear who cared for them after Sandy's death. 

Watch Bled to Death in Front of her Kids on YouTube.
Watch Bled to Death in Front of her Kids on Rumble.

Sources:

No comments: