Baylee Johnson’s partner revealed her pregnancy to the world only after a go-kart accident left both of them fighting for their lives.
Justin Lowder announced on Facebook last Thursday that Johnson, 24, was 16 weeks pregnant with a boy they had already named Johnny, due February 21. The Sumter, South Carolina, medical assistant had been critically injured eight days earlier when her hair became trapped in a go-kart sprocket at a local track, causing her neck to hyperextend and cutting off her airway, Sumter County Coroner Robbie Baker told the State.
Lowder, 26, brought the news forward because the situation had turned desperate.
“This isn’t how Baylee and I ever imagined sharing this news, but God has blessed us with a baby boy. Baylee is carrying our sweet Johnny, due February 21,” he wrote on the social media platform. “Please pray for Baylee and our precious baby boy. We love them both more than words could ever say.”
The prayers went unanswered. Johnson died Monday, and her unborn son died with her, their family confirmed in an obituary notice. The double loss came just four days after Lowder’s public plea for support.
The accident itself had occurred on July 14 at a go-karting facility in Sumter, a city of about 40,000 in the central part of the state. Johnson had been operating one of the racers when her hair caught in the vehicle’s sprocket mechanism, the coroner determined. The entanglement yanked her head backward with enough force to hyperextend her neck and stop her breathing.
She never recovered consciousness. For more than a week, she remained in grave condition as Lowder and their families kept vigil and eventually made the pregnancy known in hopes of rallying support.
Johnson’s relatives described her as a woman who had already fully embraced motherhood before it officially began.
“She dreamed about him, talked about him, prayed for him and was already planning the life she wanted to give him,” they said in their statement. “From the moment she learned he was there, Baylee was his mama, and Johnny was completely and unconditionally loved.”
The family added that they are taking “comfort” in the belief that mother and son “never had to say goodbye to one another.”
Beyond her role as an expectant mother, Johnson was a devoted aunt to her siblings’ children, a role her family called one of “the greatest joys in her life.” The nieces and nephew knew her by a special nickname.
“To her nieces and nephew, she was their beloved ‘Bay Bay,'” the relatives said. “She treasured coloring, laughing, being silly and simply spending time with them. Those ordinary moments are now among the most precious memories they will carry.”
The family remembered Johnson as having a “caring heart” and being thrilled about the new chapter she was preparing to enter. The pregnancy announcement that Lowder was forced to make under such devastating circumstances became, for many in their circle, the first and last word they would hear of little Johnny.
The go-karting incident that claimed both lives took place at a track in Sumter, where Johnson had gone for what should have been an ordinary afternoon of recreation. The sprocket entanglement represents a rare but documented type of accident in motorized amusement attractions, where rotating machinery and loose clothing or hair can combine with fatal results.
Sumter authorities have not announced any enforcement action against the track operator following the death. Baker, the county coroner, has publicly confirmed only the mechanical cause of Johnson’s fatal injury.
The family is planning services for Johnson and her unborn son.