A Strange Death
Here’s the story, from Paul in the NYT comments:
“Ah, if things were only so simple. Jahi McMath’s surgery was extensive removal of tissue from her throat, including a tonsillectomy, to alleviate severe sleep apnea. She started bleeding severely, for as yet undisclosed reasons (the family still has a gag on the hopital for privacy issues) and died. Three days later she was declared brain dead, but kept on a ventilator at the families request. Then they hired liability attorney Chris Dolan to help them force the hospital to treat their daughter as if she was still alive and might recover. After six different doctors, including the head of pediatric neurology at Stanford, examined the girl and declared her brain dead, and three courts agreed and would not force the hospital to perform a tracheotomy and insert a feeding tube (the hospital refused on the grounds that it would be unethical to perform surgery on a dead person) the family and their lawyer, through negotiations with the hospital and a judge, got the hospital to release the girl’s body to someone else. The family was able to get an ambulance service to take responsibility for the body, which was then turned over to the family who has taken it to an undisclosed location and claim that breathing and feeding tubes have been inserted and the girl is “improving”. There has been no confirmation of that and a hospital doctor testified that the body had already begun to deteriorate before it was released. And then there are the lawyers other efforts that this feeds.”
All this exactly as reported in the LA Times.
Then there’s this:
”
The surgery went well, all tissue needed to be removed, was removed. All bleeding was localized and cauterized or sutured as necessary by the surgeons.
She was placed in post-op and only chipped ice/pop sickles were allowed to give the wound time to heal. Jahi had a vociferous appetite which her parents could not control prior to surgery, thus resulting in her morbid obesity, and she certainly couldn’t control post surgery either.
She snuck her favorite foods, potato chips, cheetos, etc in clear defiance of the medical staff and unfortunately, these sharp foods tore a healing wound in her neck. The blood flowed into her lungs, asphyziating her, resulting in her being declared brain dead of all cerebral/cerebellar functioning.
This is my conjecture of what happened, having been a pediatrician, knowing these kids that are driven to eat in the face of medical safety. She in essence contributed to her own demise. The parents know it and will not admit it…”
I also found a reference to her eating cheeseburgers in the ICU after surgery, which I found absurd. I don’t know how closely she was being watched.
Anything else I find will be passed on.
Conrad Theodore Seitz 