Shyteria Shardae "Shy" Shoemaker was sitting on a bed in her Chickasaw County home when it happened.

The 23-year-old mother, who family members say could talk to just about anyone she met and who loved to argue, couldn't breathe.

Shoemaker gasped for air, stood up and opened the bedroom door.

Then, she collapsed.

Shoemaker, who was pregnant with her second child, was only an eight-minute drive from Trace Regional Hospital in Houston when 911 was first dialed. But that didn't matter since the hospital shuttered its emergency room in 2014.

The only ambulance in the county that night was almost a half-hour away.

More than an hour later, in a neighboring county, Shoemaker was pronounced dead.

Her death made the front page of the Chickasaw Journal. Residents say everybody in the county is talking about the young mother's death and questioning why their emergency room shut down.

Houston Fire Chief Jonathan Blankenship said city leaders had meeting after meeting to prepare for the emergency room's closure.

"We miss it," Blankenship said. "It's vital to our community."

It's unclear, though, if residents of Chickasaw County realized what they had lost — until now.

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'What the f--- do you mean there's no ER?'

Shy Shoemaker was a relatively healthy 23-year-old woman. Like many in her family, though, Shoemaker had asthma. Her mother said she used inhalers, took pills and slept with a mask connected to a special breathing machine at night.

Despite Shoemaker's asthma, friends and family described her as an energetic, fun-loving woman who enjoyed picking with people.

Hours before her death, Shoemaker finished a shift at McDonald's and went over to her cousins' home south of Houston, her family said. According to her cousin, LeParishe Shoemaker, Shy was sitting on a bed when she suffered an asthma attack.

LeParishe said his cousin was able to get up and open the door to another room before collapsing. That's when Melinda Johnson, the girlfriend of LeKearis Shoemaker, first called 911.

"She called her cousin's name three times, and I jumped up," Johnson said.

According to Barry Martin of Chickasaw County 911, that call was made at 1:18 a.m.

"She was already feeling woozy (when the call was made)," LeParishe recalled.

Shy was gasping for air, so the cousins decided to drive Shy to the emergency room themselves. LeParishe, LeKearis and another cousin were in the car with Shy. They sped down the road toward town. LeParishe said he was trying to keep Shy awake, but she kept fading in and out of consciousness.

At 1:20 a.m., LeKearis Shoemaker called 911 to say they were headed to the emergency room. That's when he said the dispatcher informed him there was no emergency room in Houston.

"I was like, 'What the f--- do you mean there's no ER?'" LeKearis said. "Every other place has an ER."

Police ordered cousins onto ground

The dispatcher instructed them to drive to the Houston Fire Department instead, LeKearis said. They arrived at 1:26 a.m., according to 911 records. Two firefighters were outside waiting for them, Blankenship said.

But the cousins said they didn't think the firefighters were responding quickly enough, so they went back to the car and sped a block away to the downtown square where they tried to flag down a police officer in his car.

Shy was in the car, unconscious, the cousins said. They said they were desperate for help, but the police seemed to view them like a threat and ordered them onto the ground.

It was 32 degrees that night. The cousins said they were on the ground, unable to see their cousin, wondering if she was still alive. Nearby, a crew of firefighters had arrived and were trying to save Shy's life.

The ambulance still hadn't arrived.

There are two CareMed ambulances that operate in Chickasaw County at all times. One is supposed to be stationed in Houston, the other in Okolona. CareMed CEO David Grayson said something unexpected happened that night. The employee who operated the Houston ambulance had a family emergency and left duty at midnight, leaving only one ambulance.

That ambulance was on the other side of the county.

The average response time for all calls in Chickasaw County is 16 minutes, Grayson said. Martin said the ambulance arrived on scene at 1:44 a.m, which was 26 minutes after the initial 911 call. The ambulance then drove Shy about 20 miles to Baptist Memorial Hospital in Calhoun City in neighboring Calhoun County.

Calhoun County Coroner Jerry Fleming said the hospital continued CPR for a few minutes, "but they could just never get her to come back." Fleming said Shy was pronounced dead at 2:35 a.m., more than an hour after the first 911 call. He said he's waiting on the results of an autopsy for an official cause of death.

Family believes death was preventable

Shy Shoemaker's family believes she would have lived if the emergency room wasn't closed or if the ambulance had arrived sooner.

"That's a life they could have saved," she said.

Her mother, Makeska Shoemaker, is also left to ponder whether race played a factor in Shy's death. When the cousins arrived at the square in Houston, LeParishe said they went to an officer in his car for help. The officer saw the black men outside his car and hesitated, LeParishe said.

"He looked like he was shocked ... like he was scared, like we were gonna rob him," LeParishe said. When another officer arrived on scene, LeParishe said "he was talking about we were too loud, too rowdy."

The officer yelled at them to get at the ground and put his hand on his Taser while they complied, LeParishe said.

LeParishe believes he spent the last moments of his cousin's life lying on the freezing ground as though he were a criminal suspect.

LeKearis said it made him feel like trash.

Houston Police Chief Billy Voyles declined to speak about the incident and deferred to Blankenship because Blankenship was on the scene that night.

Although Blankenship did not want to speak on behalf of the police department, the fire chief acknowledged police backed the cousins away from the scene and tried to calm them down so firefighters could work on resuscitating Shy.

Makeska Shoemaker said she was told firefighters did not give her daughter oxygen, but Blankenship was emphatic that his crew followed all the proper protocols — including administering oxygen.

Like Shy Shoemaker's family, Blankenship feels that her death is a tragedy.

"That's our job — to take care of people and save lives," Blankenship said.

A toddler with no mother

A month after Shy Shoemaker's death, a little girl in a small Mississippi town is growing up without a mother.

A'Dore lives with her grandmother, Makeska, in a modest duplex in Aberdeen, about 30 minutes east of Houston.

"Every now and then she'll be hollering. She wants her mama," Makeska said. "I'll tell her, 'She's gone, but she'll be back.'"

Makeska doesn't know when she will tell A'Dore that her mother is dead.

As Makeska spoke, she held her granddaughter in her lap while the toddler kept reaching for a bag of Funions on the couch.

A'Dore is full of energy. She loves to dance and likes to fuss.

"She's just like her mother," Makeska said.

Like her mother, A'Dore also has asthma.

She, too, sleeps with a mask hooked up to a breathing machine like her mother did.

A'Dore has already had one asthma attack. It was so serious that it put her in the hospital, Makeska said.

As long as Chickasaw County does not have an emergency room, Makeska said A'Dore will not live there.

"It don't make no sense. We got too many people living in Houston not to have a hospital or ER where they can go to," Makeska Shoemaker said. "...They need that hospital at all times."

Has your local hospital or emergency room shut down? We want to hear about it. Contact Giacomo "Jack" Bologna at 601-961-7282 or gbologna@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter.