Child Pronounced Brain Dead After Tonsil Surgery (1124 hits)
(CNN) -- When Nailah Winkfield took her daughter to Children's Hospital & Research Center in Oakland, California, for a tonsillectomy, she thought it would be a short stay. When I walked her into that hospital, she was perfectly fine," Winkfield told CNN's Piers Morgan.
"There was nothing wrong with her. She had no health problems." After the December 9 surgery, Jahi McMath, 13, woke up and asked her mother for a popsicle. But a short time later, the teen started bleeding from her mouth and nose. Winkfield watched in horror as Jahi went into cardiac arrest.
Doctors later declared Jahi brain-dead and told Winkfield they were going to take her off life support. Her parents are fighting the hospital's decision, asking for just a little more time. "The big question is, 'How in the world did this happen?' " said CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. "You're talking about a tonsillectomy, right?"
