Left Fighting for Air at Virtua Mount Holly Hospital: Perdisha “Para” Champion
In this episode of No Tears For Black Girls: The Cases They Ignored, we examine the death of twenty-eight-year-old Perdisha “Para” Champion and the questions her family says still remain about what happened inside Virtua Mount Holly Hospital in Mount Holly, New Jersey. Through a direct interview with Para’s mother, Sophia Shannon, this episode follows the final hours before her daughter’s death and the anguish that followed. Sophia says she watched Para experience severe medical distress during a night that should have ended in care, not loss.
What emerges is not only a mother’s grief, but a family’s demand for answers. Sophia does not speak like someone searching for closure. She speaks like a mother who believes her daughter was failed. As this episode traces the timeline she shared, it also steps into a larger and more painful conversation about medical accountability, delayed response, unequal treatment, and the mistrust many Black families already carry into hospital spaces. This is the story of Perdisha “Para” Champion, the mother who refuses to let her name disappear, and the questions that still refuse to go away.
If you want a shorter version for platforms with tighter space, use this: In this episode of No Tears For Black Girls: The Cases They Ignored, host Samantha Paul examines the death of twenty-eight-year-old Perdisha “Para” Champion and the questions her family says remain about what happened inside Virtua Mount Holly Hospital in New Jersey. Based on a direct interview with Para’s mother, Sophia Shannon, this episode explores Para’s final hours, a family’s demand for answers, and the larger issues of medical accountability and Black medical mistrust.
Related reading: Death Apnea, a No Tears For Black Girls: Case Files novel by J.C. Reedburg, explores medical racism, hospital erasure, and what happens when Black women are treated as disposable inside systems that were supposed to protect them.
CREDITS:
Created, Written, & Produced by John Reedburg
Hosted & Narrated by Samantha Paul
Production Company: John Reedburg Media
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