- DURHAM, N.C. (Reuters)
- Doctors at Duke University Hospital on Saturday declared dead and removed
from life support the Mexican teenager who had a second heart-lung transplant
this week after she was initially given a set of incompatible organs.
-
- Duke University hospital spokeswoman Amy Austell told
reporters that doctors removed 17-year-old Jesica Santillan from life support
at approximately 5 p.m. EST. She had been pronounced dead at 1:25 p.m.
EST. Her family did not protest the decision, the hospital said.
-
- Santillan's surgeon, Dr. James Jaggers, who had known
her since May 2002, said he bore the responsibility for the fatal transplant
mistake and expressed his sorrow to her family.
-
- "As Jesica's surgeon, I take responsibility for
those errors, and I take responsibility for the entire team," he said
in a statement. "Once the error was discovered, I did everything possible
to save her life."
-
- "Everybody at Duke mourns the loss of Jesica,"
Jaggers said.
-
- Santillan was given two sets of tests that determined
she had no brain activity and no blood flow to her brain. The girl came
very close to death after the botched Feb. 7 transplant.
-
- Earlier in the day, family lawyer Kurt Dixon had said
they did not agree with the doctors and would forbid her removal from life
support until they could obtain a second opinion.
-
- However, at 4 p.m. EST, the family announced it would
make no further public comments and did not discuss the outcome of their
request for a second opinion.
-
- After waiting three years for appropriate donor organs
to become available, doctors transplanted a heart and lungs from a donor
with the wrong blood type. Her body began immediately rejecting the organs.
-
- Doctors said the second set of organs, which matched
her Type-O blood type and were transplanted two days ago, were still operating.
But damage from the life support system might have caused brain swelling
and bleeding that killed her. Jesica never regained consciousness after
hemorrhaging after the first transplant.
-
- "The family of Jesica Santillan and the family of
Mack Mahoney are obviously devastated by this tragic turn of events,"
Dixon said.
-
- Mahoney is a family friend who raised money for Santillan's
medical care and served as family spokesman.
-
- NO DECISION ON SUIT
-
- He said the family had not decided whether it would go
to court over Jesica's death.
-
- Duke University Hospital has acknowledged its fault in
the original, faulty, transplant.
-
- In a letter to the United Network for Organ Sharing on
Friday, hospital chief executive William Fulkerson said: "We have
concluded that human error occurred at several points in the organ placement
process (which) had no structured redundancy."
-
- He said the critical failure was "absence of positive
confirmation of ... compatibility of the donor organs and the identified
recipient patient."
-
- Santillan had suffered from restrictive cardiomyopathy,
which prevents the heart chambers from filling adequately. The resultant
swelling in her heart also damaged her lungs.
-
- Her parents brought her to the United States from Mexico
for medical care. Before the first surgery, she was given three to six
months to live. After the failed transplant, doctors gave her just weeks
to live without new organs.
-
- Finding a match for her was difficult. Although she has
the most common blood type, she weighs only about 80 pounds (36 kg). Heart-lung
transplants are rare and Santillan's new organs needed to come from a child
and had to match her blood type.
-
-
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