Mom Says Her Infant Turned Blue, ‘Coded in My Arms’ from Whooping Cough (Exclusive)

It started with a normal cough when Natalie Falanga was just eight weeks old.

Her mom, Angela, took her to the doctor, who said it was just a cold, and recommended she give her baby a nebulizer with saline.

The mom to Natalie and 2-year-old Dominick tells PEOPLE exclusively, “I’m not a worrier mom,” and explains that she initially assumed her daughter’s illness would quickly improve.

But two days later, on Oct. 19, 2024, Natalie’s cough got worse. The Malverne, N.Y., mom tells PEOPLE that she was outside with her children and was giving her son lunch when Natalie “turned blue right in front of my face.”

At the pediatrician’s advice, she and her husband, Joseph, rushed their daughter to the hospital, where doctors said Natalie’s “oxygen was good” and released her.

The family went home, but the next day, Natalie “turned blue seven times,” Angela tells PEOPLE, explaining that her daughter’s condition continued to worsen as she coughed and couldn’t catch her breath.

On Oct. 20, 2024, they returned to Cohen Children Medical Center, where Natalie was diagnosed with pertussis, or whooping cough. From there, Angela says Natalie’s condition deteriorated swiftly.

“Within 12 hours she coded in my arms,” Angela says. “I’m holding her in my arms, and she stretches her arms straight out, up above her head and goes completely blue within seconds, the worst I’ve seen. They grab her from me. My husband’s screaming. I’m screaming.

“They take her from me, and they try to get her stable, and then we run upstairs to PICU, and they intubated her,” she tells PEOPLE, explaining that Natalie’s “oxygen plummeted and they had to put her on a ventilator.” 

Angela says that a nurse in the Cohen Children’s Medical Center told her, “you have to be strong for her. She can hear you.”

The next few days, she explains, were “worst days of my life.” Angela, who works as an X-ray technologist, says she saw a devastating scan of her daughter’s lungs the day after she was admitted to the hospital. 

“I looked at it and I fell to the floor,” she says. “She had no left lung. They did an X-ray in the ER when they admitted us, and her lungs were perfect. The next day, when they put her on the ventilator, her whole left lung was collapsed.”

Angela says a normal scan would show “two black lungs and you’ll see 10 ribs on each side” — but in Natalie’s case, “her left side was just all white, so it was filled with fluid [and] phlegm.”

Natalie underwent a bronchoscopy, during which doctors “sucked everything out,” Angela says.

While Natalie started to heal after her bronchoscopy, her health struggle was far from over. She stayed in the hospital for 19 days, ten of which she spent on a ventilator.

Angela was later told that when Natalie went on the ventilator, she had a 50% chance of surviving.

“You think when she comes off the ventilator, she’s good? No, now she’s a drug addict,” Angela says, explaining that her daughter had to be sedated while on the ventilator, and as a result, “she was addicted to fentanyl and morphine.”

“She had shakes, she had fevers,” Angela tells PEOPLE. “She was just suffering.”

Angela says doctors who had been working at the hospital for years said they’d never seen whooping cough in an eight-week-old.

This year, whooping cough cases are skyrocketing in the United States. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, whooping cough cases are nearly double what they were this time last year.  

Angela tells PEOPLE she’s sharing her daughter’s story now because she doesn’t want “another mother to go through what I went through.”

As someone who works in the medical field, Angela was up to date on her DTaP vaccine, which protects against whooping cough. But, she explains, everyone spending time around a baby should get the shot because infants aren’t eligible for the vaccine until they are two months old.

“We have no idea how she got it. I mean, I wasn’t taking my kids to nightclubs,” Angela says. “It could be from anywhere.”

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She shares that while she understands why parents may be hesitant to vaccinate their kids, the DTaP vaccine has “been out there and can affect the babies the most. We should definitely be advocating for that.”

Angela says, “The babies are suffering the most. We have to be their voice. They have no voice. If I could tell other moms, vaccinate your kids so you don’t have to go through what I went through, and just one other baby doesn’t have to go through it, I feel like I made like somewhat of a difference.”

She adds, “I never want anyone to go thought what we did. I still have nightmares.”