An emergency room nurse and online influencer, who were the wife of a firefighter at the Los Angeles Fire Station, died after giving birth to a son. Her husband shared it in a social media post.
In an Instagram post on April 1, Matthew O’Culla confirmed that his wife, Haley Marie O’Culla, had died of complications from childbirth. A boy named Crew survived.
Haley is known on Instagram as “Nurse Haley” and has over 440,000 followers on her social media platform. She launched the “RN New Grads” program to help new graduate nurses.
“The words cannot convey the depth of the loss I feel,” he wrote. “Hailey was more than I had dreamed of for my wife and partner. She was gorgeous, smart, hardworking, passionate, reliable and incredibly loyal.
Haley suffered from infertility and went through a challenging IVF process before announcing she was pregnant in September.
“Haley faced every hurdle with so much courage and love. Her body went through too much, but she never wavered,” Matthew wrote in the Post. “I will never forget the moment I broke down. I apologized for the fee that the process would take on her. She grabbed my face, looked into my eyes and said, “We’re a team and we’ll get through this together.” It was Haley.
The Los Angeles Fire Department, where Matthew worked as an engineer, also paid tribute to Haley.
“On March 29, 2025, Mrs. Hailey O’Culla, wife of LAFD engineer Matthew O’Culla, tragically passed away during the delivery of her child,” according to a LAFD social media post. The agency added, “We are working to support engineer Okula and his newborn crew during this unimaginably challenging time.”
Matthew O’Culla told KTTV that Haley had suffered cardiac arrest after giving birth to her son’s crew.
