The Survivor Story of Hannah Pettey

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Anne-Marie Green (0:13)

When you look in the mirror and you see the tracheotomy scar, does it bring back those memories?

Hannah Pettey (0:19)

It does, yes, it does. I just try not to dwell on it, you know.

Anne-Marie Green (0:27)

Have you thought about what you'll tell your children in the future?

Hannah Pettey (0:30)

I want to be honest with them because they do have a right to know the truth. I started first feeling like I was getting sick of August, 2021 I started getting severe abdominal pain. I was feeling so nauseous all the time.

November is when it started getting really, really bad.

Anne-Marie Green (0:55)

How worried were you at this point?

Brian Mann (0:57)

So on the bad days, I would ask, do you need to go to a doctor? What do you want to do? And she says, no, I'm OK. It'll go away. And most of the time, it did.

Hannah Pettey (1:05)

I mean, I had lost so much weight.

Brian Mann (1:09)

Things finally got to the point where I said, hey, you're losing a lot of weight. That's when I started getting concerned.

Anne-Marie Green (1:17)

Why did you take it or seek the nurse practitioner, Carrie Griffith?

Nicole Pettey (1:21)

She was yellow. By that time, she was pure yellow.

SPEAKER_6 (1:24)

Her mom grabbed my arm, and she said, promise me, whatever this is, you'll find it. She was terrified.

Hannah Pettey (1:33)

I was just in such immense pain all the time. It just progressively got worse and worse.

SPEAKER_6 (1:40)

And I thought, this little girl has two babies, and she is dying, is what I'm thinking.

Anne-Marie Green (1:45)

That's what it looks like.

SPEAKER_6 (1:46)

She's dying, yes. We've got to get her help, and we've got to get her help fast.

Brian Mann (1:51)

I insisted she go to the hospital.

Anne-Marie Green (1:54)

And did she go?

Nicole Pettey (1:55)

She did.

Anne-Marie Green (1:57)

What was that drive like?

Nicole Pettey (2:00)

Oh, fast, fast. I just remember just praying and driving. That's all I did was just praying and driving.

Anne-Marie Green (2:06)

How long do you wait in that emergency room?

Nicole Pettey (2:09)

Ten hours. And then she said, Mom, something's wrong, and then that's when she broke into the seizure.

That was terrible. Just complete jerking and foaming, and I just never stopped moving back and forth.

Garrick Vickery (2:21)

When you see a picture of Hannah when she was in the hospital, I think everyone had the same thought. What on earth put her in this position?

What could have made her body deteriorate to the point where she's unrecognizable? It's heartbreaking.

Anne-Marie Green (2:36)

How close was Hannah to dying?

Garrick Vickery (2:39)

I don't think it's an overstatement to say hours, maybe days.

Hannah Pettey (2:43)

Someone said, we figured out what's wrong with you. It's lead poisoning. You've been lead poisoned.

Anne-Marie Green (2:51)

There.

That's the lead? Yeah.

Danny Hill (2:53)

That's just the shaving of the lead.

Anne-Marie Green (2:55)

Soft enough to scrape off with a knife and put in a little capsule?

Danny Hill (2:59)

Absolutely.

Nicole Pettey (3:01)

I was at that time a suspect. Everybody had to be a suspect.

Anne-Marie Green (3:04)

I'm going to ask you a direct question. Did you try to poison your wife?

Nicole Pettey (3:08)

No.

Brian Mann (3:10)

The first thing that Hannah said to my friends when she got home was she believed Nicole had concocted this whole thing.

Nicole Pettey (3:17)

One of the other doctors I spoke to said, You have to leave because she is now under protective order.

I remember them saying either, He's done it, she's done it, or you've done it. But someone is intentionally trying to kill your daughter.

Anne-Marie Green (3:45)

In January 2022, the pain coursing through Hannah Pettey's body for six months was hitting her harder than ever.

Hannah Pettey (3:55)

It was unbearable. I was in the bed at this point for probably like a week straight.

Anne-Marie Green (4:00)

Were you even able to care for your kids?

Hannah Pettey (4:02)

I did as much as I could.

Anne-Marie Green (4:05)

Hannah's son Lincoln was three and her daughter Gracie had just turned two. But Hannah was too sick to attend Gracie's birthday party.

Hannah Pettey (4:14)

I was so weak that I couldn't hardly walk. I had a little office chair that would roll around in our house because I really didn't get out of the house.

Anne-Marie Green (4:24)

Hannah says her husband, Brian Mann, was there when she needed him the most.

Hannah Pettey (4:30)