Teachers joined in birth, death: two new mothers taught together, died days apart.

Publication: Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA)

Publication Date: 10-MAY-07

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COPYRIGHT 2007 The Philadelphia Inquirer

Byline: Marie McCullough

May 10--In March, the staff, students and parents of Avon Elementary School threw a surprise baby shower for teachers Valerie Scythes and Melissa Farah.

Mere weeks later, both young women were dead.

They died, 15 days apart, after delivering by cesarean section at Underwood Memorial Hospital in Woodbury, Gloucester County. They left behind healthy infants -- Isabella Rose Scythes and Grace Melissa Farah.

A combination of the unthinkable and the incredible, the deaths have turned two first-time fathers into widowers, shaken the tiny school and its close-knit borough of Barrington, and left myriad questions about what went wrong.

"It's just unbelievable," said Barrington Mayor John Rink, whose son Nolan was in Scythes' class last year.

Scythes, 35, died March 28. The cause is unclear, and final autopsy results are pending, said John Baldante, a Philadelphia lawyer representing the family.

Farah, 28, died April 12 of "shock, due to bleeding and anemia," according to her death certificate. The family's attorney, Todd Miller of Allentown, said he was awaiting an autopsy report.

Underwood...

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