DURHAM, North Carolina (CNN) -- Doctors at Duke University Hospital declared Jesica Santillan dead at 1:25 p.m. Saturday and removed her from a respirator soon after. The 17 year-old girl had two heart and lung transplants this month, the first of which used organs with the wrong blood type.
"As of approximately 5 p.m., she is no longer on a respirator," a hospital spokeswoman told CNN. Santillan was declared dead by doctors after a series of tests determined she had no brain function, the hospital said in a statement.
"All of us at Duke University Hospital are deeply saddened by this," said Dr. William Fulkerson, chief executive of the hospital. "We want Jesica's family and supporters to know that we share their loss and their grief. We very much regret these tragic circumstances."
Santillan had been clinging to life since shortly after her first transplant February 7, when she was given organs from a donor with an incompatible blood type -- type A, which did not match her O-positive blood -- causing her weakened body to reject them. The hospital has acknowledged that her surgeon, Dr. James Jaggers, erred in not checking the blood type before performing the first transplant, according to The Associated Press.
Another heart and lungs became available, and Santillan underwent her second transplant Thursday.
On Friday, the hospital said the Mexican teen's new heart and lungs were "working well" but that the results of a CAT scan performed at 3 a.m. EST revealed she has experienced "significant swelling and bleeding in her brain, which is life-threatening." Doctors inserted a tube in an attempt to relieve the swelling and repeated tests Saturday morning.
The critically ill teen had been at the center of a dispute pitting Mack Mahoney, Santillan's self-proclaimed godfather, against Duke University Medical Center.
Doctors believe the brain injury was caused by time she spent on heart-lung machines, Mahoney said.
Mahoney maintains that after the unsuccessful transplant, he was forced to battle the hospital's administration because it didn't want unflattering publicity about the error.
He claims the hospital was more concerned about protecting its reputation than trying to find suitable donor organs from a compatible blood group.
The delay damaged Santillan's brain and might have cost her her life, he charged. The administration needed to say it made a mistake "and not let a child lay on life support 10 or 14 days knowing that it's ruining her brain, it's ruining the other organs," he said.
The hospital denies the allegation, saying it did everything possible to correct the error and give Santillan the best possible care.
Doctors had said the second surgery would give the teen a 50 percent chance of survival. Without it, she would die, doctors had said.
Two and half years ago, Mahoney set up a foundation in the girl's behalf after reading a newspaper article about how she needed a transplant because of a heart deformity that kept her lungs from getting oxygen into her blood. He has acted as the family's spokesman because Santillan's parents speak only Spanish.
fuck. if i were the parents, i would kill. this is so unbelievably sad. what jackasses. they couldn't figure it out before they screwed up??
I can't believe that happened. Even if she lived, she would have been a fucking vegetable because of their error. It's rather sad, and I hope the doctors from Duke are sent up the river on this one.
I faced death. I went in with my arms swinging. But I heard my own breath and had to face that I'm still living. I'm still flesh. I hold on to awful feelings. I'm not dead... My chest still draws breath. I hold it. I'm buoyant. There's no end.
they sure have, i can't even imagine what the parents are going through, since they only know spanish. very, very, sad.
Whenever death may surprise us,
let it be welcome
if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear
and another hand reaches out to take up our arms.
Nobody's gonna miss me, no tears will fall, no ones gonna weap, when i hit that road.
my boots are broken my brain is sore, fer keepin' up with thier little world, i got a heavy load.
gonna leave 'em all just like before, i'm big city bound, your always 17 in your hometown
the parents went through so much just to get her the transplant. they were illegally smuggled into the country...waited on a list...and all for what? to be put through undescribable and completely inreasonable pain.
i can't get over the fact that when she went in there she needed a new heart and lungs and after a few tries they managed to do that right, but in the process killed her brain. her heart and lungs were working when she died.
i wonder if the doctor who was in charge can go to jail for this...
damn, that's sad. on friday on channel one they had a story about this girl, about how her body was accepting the organs and all the could do was wait... guess the story took a bad turn.
!EMiLY!
sweet blasphemy my giving tree
it hasn't rained in years
i bring to you this sacrificial offering of virgin ears
leave it to me i remain free from all the comforts of home
and where that is i'm pleased as piss to say
i'll never really know
It was probably best for her that she did end up dying. I mean, if she lived after the second transplant, she would have had severe brain damage, meaning she would live her life as a potato. I don't know how you all feel, but given the choice of death or living as a potato, I'd rather die. You can't accomplish anything living as a brain dead entity, except for the demand of care from your relatives for the rest of your life, so realistically, death was probably the best thing that could have happened to her in this situation.
I faced death. I went in with my arms swinging. But I heard my own breath and had to face that I'm still living. I'm still flesh. I hold on to awful feelings. I'm not dead... My chest still draws breath. I hold it. I'm buoyant. There's no end.
I don't see why people who have parents in that state keep them on life-support. I would definitely want to die, too. But this situation shouldn't have happened in the first place.
!EMiLY!
sweet blasphemy my giving tree
it hasn't rained in years
i bring to you this sacrificial offering of virgin ears
leave it to me i remain free from all the comforts of home
and where that is i'm pleased as piss to say
i'll never really know
Can't they sue for like malpractice or something? I think they can sue.
This one child who lived in my town, almost drowned... and got put on life support and spent his life as a vegetable. I don't know why his parents decided to do that, but it was their choice... however, it was unbelievably expensive to keep care of him... and he died about four years later. It was really sad.
"I wrote on my palm before I went to have it read to see if she would read that too."- Mitch Hedberg
Yeah, they can be sued for malpractice, I mean, they fucked up something simple as reading a fucking blood type off of a piece of paper. Now that is just ignorant and unacceptable. That girl went from being able to live a normal life to getting brain damage and dying because of a fucking mistake. I sure as hell hope Duke gets sued for this.
I faced death. I went in with my arms swinging. But I heard my own breath and had to face that I'm still living. I'm still flesh. I hold on to awful feelings. I'm not dead... My chest still draws breath. I hold it. I'm buoyant. There's no end.
they will but it's not the monetary damage that's important, they're a wealthy establishment, they could pay anything you asked. the thing that's most important is the negative publicity that goes along with this. so yeah i hope they do get sued and i hope the media has a frenzy over it, that's the only way any real damage could be done.
but when it comes down to it, nothing will bring the girl back. they fucked up in a way that you can't make up for.
this reminds me of that thing with the girl who had sickle cell anemia and was overanesthetized during a routine operation or something.
fuck, the thing i was really crushed to hear about was when they announced that that girl whose boyfriend had beaten her with a baseball bat had died. i was really really hoping she would survive. sometimes people just suck beyond all belief
awkward is the new cool
[url]gutterhome.blogspot.com[/url]
A friend of mine today was complaining that her back hurt....and that she thinks she needs some work done.
I told her to head to Duke......haha that was mean, but its really REALLY sad.
Those doctors might as well kiss their practice licenses goodbye now, cut them up and throw them away b/c they will never get to practice medicine ever.
I sure hope a suit surfaces soon......although chances of it being from the family is slim b/c they weren't legal U.S. citizens. They got here, put Jesica on the donor waiting list and b/c of that they couldn't be sent back home.
Smart thinking......too bad the doctors are tools.
Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil. - Niccoló Machiavelli
