Natasha Richardson Tragedy Saves a Young Life

In case you wondered whether any good can come from actress Natasha Richardson's tragic death, consider this amazing story on CNNHealth.com.

When Connie and Donald McCracken of Mentor, Ohio saw the news about Richardson's skiing injury and death last week, they immediately wondered about their seven-year-old daughter Morgan.  Two days earlier, she had been hit in the temple by a baseball linedrive.  The family iced her injury and the swelling went down.

"For the next two days, she was perfectly fine," Donald McCracken tells CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. "She had no symptoms. She went to school both days and got an A on her spelling test as usual. There were no issues whatsoever."

But after the news of Richardson's death, the McCrackens were worried about Morgan.  When they kissed her goodnight later, she complained of a headache. "Because of Natasha, we called the pediatrician immediately," McCracken remembers.  "And by the time I got off the phone with him, Morgan was sobbing, her head hurt so much."

The McCrackens took Morgan to the emergency room where doctors ordered a CT scan.  They immediately put her on a helicopter flight to a Cleveland hospital where Morgan was rushed into the operating room.  Doctors told her father that she had suffered the same injury as Richardson: an epidural hematoma.

After surgery and five days in the hospital, Morgan is at home and doing well.  She's a brand new member of The Survivors Club thanks to the painful lesson of Natasha Richardson's "talk and die syndrome," in which a patient seems okay but then deteriorates rapidly.

For more about "talk and die" syndrome, click here.

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