Her mother has kept every word of her story. Enter quietly. Let her song carry you.
She walked in with a cough.Forty-one days later, she was gone.Her mother promised to be her voice — and she will not be silent.
She walked in with a cough.Forty-one days later, she was gone.Her mother promised to be her voice — and she will not be silent.
She was my only child. I stood before the court myself and was appointed her legal guardian. That was a promise, and I kept it every day of her life.
Danielle was born on August 5, 1993. Her birth was delayed at Long Island Jewish Hospital — leaving her with special needs for the rest of her life. But you would never know it from the way she loved the world.
Two to three days a week she went to the nursing home — serving breakfast and lunch to the elderly, sitting with them, holding their hands. Children were drawn to her everywhere she went. She bowled. She laughed. She was healthy, strong, and full of life.
She had never spent a single night without her family.
On August 27, 2021, I brought her to Northwell Health Glen Cove Hospital with a cough. Her oxygen was 96%. Her blood work was normal. I held her hand walking through those doors and kissed her forehead.
That was the last time she held my hand. The last time I saw her eyes open. The last time she called me Mommy.
This is not justDanielle’s story.This is a warning.
Northwell Health locked me out on September 1st. Instead of someone to comfort her, they tied her to the bed — a frightened child, crying for her Mommy, alone among strangers. They did not call me. They chose restraints over compassion. Protocol over humanity.
Danielle spent thirty-two days on a ventilator, sedated, unable to speak for herself. I was locked out of the building for thirteen of those days.
There are serious discrepancies in Danielle’s certified medical records. They are documented, they are before the court, and they will be addressed there.
On October 6, 2021, Danielle died. She was alone. I never got to say goodbye.
Rebecca prepared and filed the case herself, pro se, before retaining counsel. No attorney. No legal training. No money. Just a mother who refused to let her daughter’s truth die with a deadline.
I refuse to be silent. And I will not let them get away with it.
I need your help to expose and support my case. Our future depends on safe and trusted hospitals, doctors, and nurses. It all starts with your willingness to say — yes, I will stand with you, for the fate of our children and grandchildren.
The facts as they are recorded. Documented in an active lawsuit in Nassau County Supreme Court, NY.
Danielle walked into Northwell Hospital in Glen Cove, New York — eight minutes from where we live — for a cough. She was twenty-eight. She was bright, beautiful, and full of plans.
They told me she could go home after two days. That was the promise. That was the plan I believed.
On September 1st, they told me I could go home and take a shower — that I would be able to come back. That was a lie. They locked me out. They blocked all communication with my daughter. Then they tied her to the bed.
Danielle was scared. Danielle was fighting. She had never spent a night without me. A COVID policy was used to bar her legal guardian — her mother — from the room.
She was left completely alone. Terrified.
Danielle spent thirty-two days on a ventilator, sedated, unable to speak for herself. Her mother, her legal guardian by court decree, was locked out of the building for thirteen of those days.
There are serious discrepancies in Danielle's certified medical records. They are documented, they are before the court, and they will be addressed there.
She was gone. Forty-one days of torture. Forty-one days without her mother. Forty-one days stolen.
This is where the counting ended. This is where the accounting began.
Danielle’s certified hospital record runs thousands of pages. Her mother has read every one of them. What that record contains is now the subject of active litigation in the Supreme Court of the State of New York.
Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Nassau, Index No. 605957/2024. Three physicians are named as defendants. The case is proceeding.
There are serious discrepancies in Danielle’s certified medical records. They are documented, they are before the court, and they will be addressed there.
Please donate. Please share. Danielle deserves justice. Donate on GiveSendGo →
For Danielle. Always for Danielle. ♥
#JusticeForDanielle #DanielleAlvarez
My daughter Danielle spent forty-one days in that hospital. Thirty-two of them on a ventilator. She did not come home.
Under a New York law written in 1847, here is what her death is worth.
The damages awarded to the plaintiff may be such sum as the jury deems to be fair and just compensation for the pecuniary injuries resulting from the decedent’s death to the persons for whose benefit the action is brought… the reasonable expenses of medical aid, nursing and attention incident to the injury causing death and the reasonable funeral expenses of the decedent… shall also be proper elements of damage.Read the full statute →
The statute allows a family to recover only pecuniary injuries. Money. Nothing else. Not grief. Not anguish. Not a mother watching her child suffer for six weeks.
Danielle had no job, so there are no lost wages. She had no children, so there is no lost parenting to compensate. And New York compensates a child who loses a parent, but never a parent who loses a child. No wages. No dependents. No compensable relationship to her own mother. Add the funeral. That is the entire ledger.
Now understand what that does.
If Danielle had survived those forty-one days alive but destroyed, her suffering would have been fully compensable. She died instead — and the exposure went down.
The sponsors of the bill to repeal this rule said it plainly in the official record: the law lets a wrongdoer take advantage of a rule that makes it cheaper to kill someone than to seriously injure them.
That is why ninety attorneys could not take my case. Not because there was no case. Because there was no recovery — and no firm can front two hundred thousand dollars against a column of zeros.
The law does not just fail families like mine. It makes us the safest patients in the building to lose.
The Grieving Families Act would end this. It has passed both houses of the New York Legislature four times. Governor Hochul has vetoed it four times — most recently on December 5, 2025 — citing insurance premiums and the cost to hospitals. The same hospitals.
Read the Grieving Families Act →Born at Long Island Jewish Hospital — delayed at birth, deprived of oxygen at the hands of the doctors. Twenty-eight years later, another hospital would finish what the first had started. Bright. Kind. Loved.
Eight minutes from home. They said Danielle could come home in two days. That was the promise.
They told Rebecca she could go home and shower — and come right back. That was a lie. Once she was gone, all communication was blocked. Danielle was tied to the bed, scared and fighting.
The two-day promise became forty-one days of hell. Rebecca was barred from the room. Danielle was sedated on a ventilator, unable to speak for herself.
Thirty-two days on the ventilator. Forty-one days in their care.
Family photographs of Danielle — before the hospital, before the silence.
Written by Rebecca Charles · For her daughter, Danielle.
Active lawsuit, Nassau County Supreme Court, NY. Rebecca — her mother, her legal guardian — continues to write the record in the open.
“We will never stop fighting. We will never stop loving. We will never forget.”
August 5, 1993 — October 6, 2021. Kept by her mother, Rebecca. Never forgotten.
Write a name — your own, a loved one’s, or one you are carrying — and let a candle burn beside Danielle’s. Every candle keeps her name alive.
17 candles burn for Danielle. Behind each one is a person who stopped, read her story, and refused to look away.
But candles alone cannot walk into a courtroom. Expert witnesses, medical record reviews, and court fees — this is what justice costs. This is what your donation pays for.
Danielle walked into the hospital with a cough. She never walked out. Rebecca prepared and filed the case herself, pro se, before retaining counsel. No attorney, no legal training, just a promise to be her daughter’s voice.
Light a candle to remember her. Give what you can to fight for her. Do both, and you become part of the answer.
Tax-deductible option available through Free Now Foundation, 501(c)(3). Both funds go to the fight.
For Danielle. Always for Danielle. 🧡
“So sorry you and your family Rebecca were treated so completely wrong. My late Mom Passed 12 hours after a FaceTime. NYS prohibited visits.”
“Always praying and Thinking of you”
“I wish I had known u Danielle. I know u are happy and at peace. Your mom fights so hard for Justice--they will never win,.”
“Our Universal God has witnessed and those who are responsible for Danielle’s death WILL BEYOND DOUBT FACE THE SACRED UNIVERSAL LAWS THAT SEE”
“Colleen smith”
“She was a bright, bubbly, loving person. This world is a little bit darker for losing her.”
A candle is a moment. A letter is a keepsake. Leave her a few sentences — a memory, a prayer, a promise — and it will rest here with the others, for her mother to read.
The page is open and waiting. Yours can be the first letter Danielle receives here.
