Family Of Jahi McMath Petitioning Court to Have Her Declared “Alive”

LifeNews.com ^ | 10/2/14 | Wesley J. Smith

[Tired of Taxes]

According to the State of California, JahiMcMath has been dead since December 9, 2013, when she went into cardiac arrest after catastrophic side effects from throat surgery.

Oakland Children’s Hospital doctors insisted she was brain dead, that is, she had experienced total brain failure. Under California law, brain death is dead.

When the doctors stated their intention to remove the life support from Jahi, her mother sued. A brouhaha ensued.

A judge appointed an independent physician from Stanford to examine the girl, and he too found she was dead. The judge declared her dead and the state of California issued a death certificate.

But the compassionate judge also pushed the parties into a settlement that released Jahi to the coroner–still on a ventilator–and thence to her family. She was taken out of state.

At the time, I wrote here and elsewhere that I thought she was dead. But I also said that if her body did not deteriorate–as almost all brain dead bodies do–my eyebrows would be raised. Over the last few months my eyebrows have migrated past my receding hairline.

I also wrote that if she was found to not actually be dead, there would be “hell to pay.” That bill may be coming due if the McMath attorney Chris Dolan, succeeds in having the state declare her alive. From the San Francisco Chronicle story:

Nearly 10 months after doctors found that Oakland teenager Jahi McMath was brain dead, an attorney for her family has petitioned an Alameda County judge to have her declared “alive again.” “I have medical experts, including world-class experts on brain death, who will testify she is not brain dead,” attorney Chris Dolan said Wednesday, calling a judge’s refusal last year to compel a hospital to care for her “a grave injustice.”

Oakland Hospital has been just abysmal in its PR in this case–and that maladroit insensitivity continues:

Hospital officials did not return our call seeking comment. However, in their court filing, attorneys for Children’s said Grillo’s ruling upholding the death declaration was “well-supported in fact and law.” What’s more, they said, Dolan missed the deadline to request a rehearing by seven months, and therefore the court no longer has jurisdiction to hear it.

Dolan argues that the court does have the legal authority to rule “in the interests of justice, which are literally those of life and death.”

Good grief. This isn’t about legal procedure. If evidence exists that she is alive, the hospital should be supporting that data coming out.

If evidence exists that Jahi is alive, it needs to be heard! That’s what we do in death penalty cases, after all: Permit new evidence even after procedural deadlines have passed.

Dolan is a well-respected lawyer. He is not saying that Jahi’s mother believes she is still alive, or that family members have detected interactivity in their deep love for her. He is not contending that the California law on brain death is wrong.

He is saying objective medical tests demonstrate that she is not brain dead. Or to put it another way, Dolan apparently believes that he can prove to the court, based on evidence, that Jahi McMath has positive brain function. If so, she is not dead.

Please note, this isn’t the same thing as saying she is awake. A persistently unconscious person is alive. A brain dead person isn’t in a coma, but deceased.

If Dolan successfully proves the case, there will be much hell to pay. There will be consequences.

Fasten your seat belts: This is going to be a bumpy ride!

LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney who blogs at Human Exeptionalism.

[Tired of Taxes]

Thank you for telling your story, Marie. It truly is moving, and it shows how some cases merely appear hopeless when really there is always hope.

[caww]

....”The mother could’ve settled in a lawsuit against the hospital, if money was her incentive”......

Unless the “donation sites”, and there are several, generated a steady income for her. Which may very well be dwindling....a common after a year they begin to do just that. This would also account for her wanting her daughter to be declared alive for then the state must pick up the tab...which to this point private donors have been doing so.

[caww]

....”The mother could’ve settled in a lawsuit against the hospital, if money was her incentive”.....

Perhaps she didn’t because she has no legal standing to do so and knows it...as does her attorney.

[Tired of Taxes]

If this mother was concerned only about money, she would’ve had a better chance in court. Her 13yo daughter was not terminally ill. This was not a life-or-death situation. She had surgery for sleep apnea.

So, it seems more likely that this mother just loves her daughter very dearly and is racked with guilt because she did what any parent would do - that is, she told her young daughter that there was nothing to fear and everything would be OK after surgery.

[Sun]

UPDATE!

“Neurologist Says Jahi McMath is “Alive” and “Awake;” Videos Show Her Responding
by Wesley J. Smith | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 10/6/14 ..”

Read http://www.lifenews.com/2014/10/06/neurologist-says-jahi-mcmath-is-alive-and-awake-videos-show-her-responding/?utm_content=buffer5f01a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

[Tired of Taxes]

Thanks for the update. I hope for a miracle. Meanwhile, this case is going to be one to watch very closely.

[POWERSBOOTHEFAN]

I noticed that too. Her feet are bloated and her toes are black. I would imagine they’re black under that nail polish, which leads me to believe that her toenails were painted on purpose. I could be wrong of course but this just isn’t right.

This poor child is deceased.

[POWERSBOOTHEFAN]

She wasn’t brain dead.

[caww]

I have no problem showing these pictures as the family has made this a public issue .....But what the mother is documenting is the maintenance of a dead body on oxygen and a ventilator. ....the room is now being kept cold because the body stinks. It's decaying...... She's not getting life support she's getting organ support and even that's breaking down slowly....it's just a question of when everything fails.....

.....Bodies of the brain-dead have been maintained on respirators for months or in rare cases even years .. once cessation of all brain activity is confirmed, as it was in this case, there is no recovery....no chance it can be reversed....she has no blood flowing to the brain.

Additionally....A test of electrical activity in the brain alone is not enough, one Dr. said... ( internet-university phd's are not the way to go!)....With thousands of reputable doctors to choose from to examine her they've chosen none........Another Doctor wrote...the claim she has brain activity won't hold up...says he can get electrical measurements out of Jell-O....No reputable Dr. will touch this gal...they know her body is decaying.

When you see the pictures of her the elasticity is fading from the tissues under her skin and there's obvious muscle contraction.....evidencing the body is decomposing.

Here's a close up of her nails, (7 weeks ago) you can see the black and green around nail bed...and fingers pitted as they decompose.... (Note: No reputable hospital would let her nails be painted as the mother continually does if she was alive).

Here you can see clearly the differences in the size of the ankles compared to the knee area....also the toenails are sinking in on themselves..(decomposing )

[Tired of Taxes]

But, if she’s deceased, how is she able to move her hand and foot?

[POWERSBOOTHEFAN]

How is this even allowed? It’s very obvious that she has passed on.

It sickens me. How can her mother do this to her child?

[caww]

...”How can her mother do this to her child?”....

Well first of all she listened to a manipulative hungry Attorney rather than the medical team and outside authorities who pronounced her dead.

She’s gotten herself, along with those who’ve encouraged her, into a tight spot she can’t escape without taking the fight to the courts..which she has done.

Her Attorney has a political agenda and why this was once again raised to declare her “alive”....there’s propositions he’s supporting he wants to see go thru and this case he’s hoping will push them thru if he can win..or at least make it questionable.

The mother is a dingbat at best....she long ago passed the “mourning” stage and is just in the game playing her roll unfortunately.

The photos are very evident the body is decomposing...and has been...

Just for your information...remember how in the Teri Schivo case the parents released a video of her looking as if her eyes were following a moving balloon? ...Well, when they examined her brain after death ‘she was blind’..the visual cortex was completely gone..... Video can be highly deceptive.

Just as the mother showing video of the body reacting to the touch of an ice cube and twitching. She’s dead...and very much so now.

Oddly the mother shared how they have to keep her wrapped in blankets....when it’s the rooms is very cold and having her in blankets she doesn’t have to look at what’s obvious.

[caww]

if she’s deceased, how is she able to move her hand and foot?.....the same way they showed video of the other gal Terri S.....remember they believed her eyes were following a balloon move across the room...well in her autopsy they found she was actually blind...the visual brain area was completely gone....nothing there. These are body (involuntary) reflexes ......also note the mothers hand near the body's knee, (other photo) slightly under the covers....in order to position the body as she wanted it shown. This is not a natural position for movement as the mother claimed her daughter was doing this.

I am convinced they are not in any Hospital facility now....rather some room somewhere and have maybe nurses pop in and out because so much in the photos would never be permitted for a patient that they are doing to this dead girls body.

In this photo notice the foot has dropped which is consistent with being contracted or rigor mortis (as in a DEAD body).........you would normally have the foot either off the heels or in protective "waffle" boots to prevent pressure ulcers.....There's also very mottled discoloration happening there as well. Not to mention the toenails are sinking in on themselves..(decomposing again).

Frankly what they are doing to this body is abuse of a corpse....plain and simple. Which is why the medical community does not want anything to do with this case...and why she's clearly not in a medical facility.

[Tired of Taxes]

These are body (involuntary) reflexes ......also note the mothers hand near the body's knee, (other photo) slightly under the covers....in order to position the body as she wanted it shown. This is not a natural position for movement as the mother claimed her daughter was doing this.

In the first video at the link in post #25, Jahi moves her foot when her mother is not touching her at all.

I don't know whether this young girl is alive or not. But, based on the videos and statements made by a few doctors who examined her, there is some doubt on whether she's truly "brain dead."

[caww]

“......how is she able to move her hand and foot?....”

Any brain-dead patients have spontaneous movements such as jerking of fingers or bending of toes. These movements occur in 39 percent of brain-dead patients, according to a study published in the January 11 issue of Neurology,.these are “spinal reflexes” that do not involve ‘any’ brain activity.”

Family members and others need to understand that these movements ‘originate in the spinal cord’, not in the brain, and their presence does not mean that there is brain activity.....these can also occur once a ventilator is removed.

Another article in this issue of Neurology describes unusual movements in two brain dead patients. The movements occurred in a 30-year-old woman and an 11-month-old baby at a hospital in Barcelona, Spain. Both patients extended their arms, flexed their wrists and curled up their fingers each time the mechanical ventilator inflated their lungs. The movements stopped after the patients were disconnected from the ventilator.

They also occur in dead bodies....her body is sending out nerve twitching..which is also indicating it’s dying...not living.

Additionally....there can be ‘groans’ seemingly from the body as it builds up with gas from the breakdown of the cells and organs....

[caww]

You need to check who those Dr.s are and the political agenda which is currently in play....and which her attorney has sunk his own money into to see get passed. He’s going to pay anyone to say what they will to enhance his agenda.

What is that agenda...to change how much someone can sue for wrongful death and medical malpractice......he wants to raise that to a million plus. ..along with other ambulance chasers as himself.

He’s using this family and this body to support what he wants done politically.

I left another post on body twitching in brain death and also after death.....her body is trying to decompose naturally and these people are trying to stop it...that is all this is and nothing more...she is dead...and was dead Dec. 12, 2013 when they declared her so.

[caww]

...”In the first video at the link in post #25, Jahi moves her foot when her mother is not touching her at all”....

It wouldn’t require her to touch.... the body is trying to do what it naturally does, which is to decompose...they are trying to prevent it from doing so.

As I mentioned before...videos can be deceptive as it was for Terri when they though her eyes were following that balloon....(but she was, keep in mind alive)...and they found she was actually blind and could not have seen the ballooon at all.

So what you see in a video proves only that her body is twitching....and it will do so and actually can be controlled if they remove her ventilator...it usually will twitch ...which notice they never show her full body...to see if or not she’s on or off the ventilator while this is happening....in other words they can manipulate this body.

[caww]

Foot Oct..2014

Take a good look here...you see the blood pooling...body swelling, toes are black and nails receding within themselves...the body is swelling from the gases within ....

As we know, the medical community has said that the body would continue to decay regardless of what means were supplied to stop the process...it would only delay it but never would stop the decomposing. ..and here we are seeing it continue..... This is such a terrible thing this family has done...I cannot say enough of how awful they have treated their daughters body...and her memory.....they should of taken the mother to a head doctor...she is clearly not well mentally OR she's in this with the attorney for the ride they're on. I tend to think both now.

[caww]

By the way the UCLA Dr. only reviewed data, accounts given him. ...He did NO testing and relied on a PHD, not Dr. This is 3rd party heresay.

[Sun]

You ought to stop getting your information from liberal sources. But it’s a free country.