• You must be logged in to see or use the Shoutbox. Besides, if you haven't registered, you really should. It's quick and it will make your life a little better. Trust me. So just register and make yourself at home with like-minded individuals who share either your morbid curiousity or sense of gallows humor.

California Mother Tells Of Tonsil Surgery Tragedy

Video of Jahi responding to vocal commands. First the foot, but the hands was something. Please watch.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_266...ks-silence-brain-dead-girls?source=rss_viewed

It has been more than eight months since the brain-dead teenager left Oakland after a failed surgery and went east to a facility in New Jersey, the one place to agree to treat a brain-dead patient.

As Jahi left, so did her family. Her mother, Nailah Winkfield, her stepfather, Jahi's younger sister and nurses now live with Jahi at a New Jersey home, where she is hooked up to various machines to feed her and keep her organs functioning. Winkfield's other children, her mother, a future grandson, and Jahi's friends remain in their native Oakland.


The mother, with attorney Christopher Dolan, her mother and her brother at her side, vowed on Friday to fight to bring Jahi home.

"I'm homesick. I want to come home. Our family is so separated and broke up," Winkfield said Friday at Dolan's office in San Francisco. "I left here with one suitcase. I didn't know where I was going."

This week, Dolan and Winkfield filed court documents asking a court to reverse its earlier ruling confirming findings by the Alameda County Coroner's Office and three doctors that Jahi is brain dead. They say new evidence from a team of neurologists and researchers shows that Jahi has suffered severe brain injuries but shows some signs of life.
Click to expand...
 
Who cares? Does anyone think even if she is a modern day Lazarus she'd want to live this way???

Her family sucks.
 
I go back and forth on this....I have to say for someone who is "dead" to improve physically seems a little odd, but clearly she looks very healthy and improved.

Didn't they already have a video of her responding to cold?
 
As a mom I can see why she's holding onto hope, I can't say I wouldn't do the same after seeing that video.
 
Nell said:
Who cares? Does anyone think even if she is a modern day Lazarus she'd want to live this way???

Her family sucks.
Click to expand...
Right? So she responds ( with twitches) to pain or other stimuli, whoop-de-doo. She's not ever going to wake up or actually live. This isn't a case of "the lights are on but no one's home," this is "the person who lived here abandoned this place ages ago with neither the intention nor ability to ever return, but the HOA has continued to maintain the property in her absence."

Jahi is gone, and can never come back. Everything that truly was Jahi- her thoughts, her feelings, her memories- is gone, turned irrevocably to mush in her damaged brain.
 
I keep hoping that her family had finally did the right thing and let her continue on her journey, but I can see I am disappointed yet again.
 
cubby said:
I keep hoping that her family had finally did the right thing and let her continue on her journey, but I can see I am disappointed yet again.
Click to expand...
Her journey is over, and I take comfort in that. The only remaining journey, in my mind, is her family's through their greatly retarded stages of grief.
 
Jahi McMath remains on ventilator in 'home environment' one year after being declared brain dead
A year ago, 13-year-old Jahi McMath underwent a tonsillectomy and tissue removal at Children's Hospital in Oakland, California, to treat sleep apnea. The girl suffered massive bleeding, had a heart attack and was declared brain dead Dec. 12.

Her family battled to keep her on a ventilator and to have breathing and feeding tubes surgically inserted. Under a court agreement, the family and the hospital agreed that Jahi's mother, Nailah Winkfield, could remove her from the hospital if she took responsibility for the girl's care.

A year later, Jahi remains on a ventilator and hooked to feeding tubes, and her case has ignited a debate over the definition of brain death. Here's a look at the latest:

___

Q: Why does her family want to keep her on a ventilator?

A: Jahi's relatives say their religious beliefs dictate that as long as her heart is beating, Jahi is alive and deserves long-term care. In October, the family released videos of the girl showing her foot and hand appearing to move in response to her mother's commands.

___

Q: Is there any scientific basis for the family's belief that Jahi is responsive and could recover?

A: Nancy Berlinger, a bioethicist with The Hastings Center, a nonpartisan research institute devoted to health and medical issues, says Jahi's body is only being maintained by machines. Others contend the family is confusing any movements with an involuntary muscle reflex sometimes seen in brain-dead patients— the so-called Lazarus effect.
[...]
more at link
Click to expand...
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/jahi-mcmath-remains-ventilator-year-article-1.2042930
 
as a mom who has lived similar to this with our son
when his body began attacking and infecting him we disconnected and thats not an easy thing to decide
there will be one that wants to do it and one that doesnt
there will be family members divided by the decision no matter who had been sticking together
blame will be thrown around etc
I know they are thinking a miracle is going to happen and we know it isnt
but as long as they are paying for expenses
( im not sure if they are or not)
then they can do what they want
but eventually her organs will break down
infections will set in and she will be in pain most likely
they become poisoned by their own body literally
the most humane thing would be disconnect when her body does start turning on itself
at the latest
 
Last edited:
I'm about 9000% sure they're not paying for it themselves, but that either the facility is providing care pro bono or some anonymous donor has stepped in to pay.

Colour me cynical, but they'll keep that dead child on machines for as long as possible since donations are still coming in through gofundme or whatever site they're using. They know that as soon as she's off the vent the religious fanatics who "believe in miracles and the healing power of prayer" will stop showering them with free money. Even if Nailah still believes that her daughter will someday wake up, I think it's likely that the extended family is under no such delusions and just wants the gravy train to keep on rolling.
 
Sometimes the kindest and most loving thing is to just let go. I hope this family comes to understand this soon.
 
Nell said:
They won't. This is a shit show they are profiting from. It's gross.
Click to expand...

I wonder if anyone has bluntly told them that this beautiful child may still be capable of feeling pain, and that they are prolonging her agony by keeping her body's mechanics going artificially. If they have been told this, then they are going against their own Christian beliefs by trading their daughter's suffering for fame and money.
 
Azryhael said:
I'm about 9000% sure they're not paying for it themselves, but that either the facility is providing care pro bono or some anonymous donor has stepped in to pay.

Colour me cynical, but they'll keep that dead child on machines for as long as possible since donations are still coming in through gofundme or whatever site they're using. They know that as soon as she's off the vent the religious fanatics who "believe in miracles and the healing power of prayer" will stop showering them with free money. Even if Nailah still believes that her daughter will someday wake up, I think it's likely that the extended family is under no such delusions and just wants the gravy train to keep on rolling.
Click to expand...
I don't think any agency would do this pro bono for this long, the most likely scenario is that someone has donated the ventilator and she's at home being cared for by mom.

I think she's been brainwashed to believe her daughter can be healed.
 
China said:
I don't think any agency would do this pro bono for this long, the most likely scenario is that someone has donated the ventilator and she's at home being cared for by mom.

I think she's been brainwashed to believe her daughter can be healed.
Click to expand...

I suspect you are right. Although it woudn't take much brainwashing for a parent to believe that his/her child is not dead.

And people just don't understand about brain damage.

I am shocked even on this site to see people wondering if an abused infant who was left in a vegetative state has recovered. No, they don't recover. They might cling to life and they might "improve," but there is no hope for a normal life for a child who has been damaged so badly. Even a small head injury has long-term consequences. Your brain is the consistency of toothpaste. The inside of your skull is covered with sharp, pointy things. When your brain sloshes around in there, something called "shear" happens. If you don't know what that is, look it up. So even a child who heals remarkably from abusive head injuries is never going to be the same. Something intangible and irreplaceable is lost forever.
 
It seems nobody's been paying rent
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_27499889/jahi-mcmath-landlord-sues-family-alleging-unpaid-rent
[...]Parkside Realty, which operates Countryside Apartments, alleges Jahi's parents, Marvin and Nailah Winkfield, did not pay rent in December and January, and owe the landlord $3,375 in unpaid rent, late charges, and attorney fees, New Jersey court records show.
[...]The complaint was filed on Jan. 26 in the Superior Court of New Jersey in Somerset County, where the family is listed as living. The case is active, according to the court's website, but family attorney Christopher Dolan said it is being withdrawn. Dolan called it an "administrative error" but would not elaborate.
"Somebody didn't pay the rent. The rent's been paid," Dolan said by phone Tuesday evening.
Parkside Realty's attorney did not return a message left Tuesday.
[...]According to court records, Jahi's family moved into the Somerset apartment on Aug. 15, 2014. In October, the family said they moved Jahi from a New Jersey hospital into a nearby apartment, but did not say exactly where.
Her mother, Nailah Winkfield, and her stepfather, Marvin Winkfield, and Jahi's younger sister, along with nurses, have lived in the home, where Jahi is hooked up to various machines to feed her and keep her organs functioning. The rest of the McMath family remains in the family's home in Oakland.
{...]
Click to expand...

:arghh:
 
More of the family's financial woes, this time from local NJ media. They lived through a blizzard and freezing temperatures, ya know... along with several million other people. They're right across the river from NYC.
http://www.nj.com/somerset/index.ssf/2015/02/jahi_mcmath.html
Comments from the locals may prove interesting. Now that their location has been disclosed they'll have to move, if they haven't already. They're at such a high risk of home invasion, ya know. Pull those darn plugs already!
 
The family filed a lawsuit yesterday, 3/3.
Family of California girl left brain dead after tonsillectomy sues hospital
https://news.yahoo.com/family-california-girl-left-brain-dead-tonsillectomy-sues-011154242.html[...]
The lawsuit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court by McMath's mother, stepfather and other family members, alleged that surgeon Frederick Rosen performed a "complex and risky" operation on the teen despite finding an anatomical abnormality that increased the chances of her hemorrhaging.

The suit also charged that doctors and nurses at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital in Oakland failed to respond properly when McMath began coughing up blood after the surgery.[...]
Click to expand...
 
This thread....there are no words. It is both wonderful and terrible.

Also when I think of the condition her body must be in after a year, I feel a little sick.
 
How is it not more painful for the family to see their loved one like that? I'd want to pull the plug immediately.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Latest posts

Back
Top