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Sixteen-year-old Javona Peters sat up in bed at Montefiore Medical Center the morning of Oct. 17, smiling and chatting, ready for her operation.
"I want to come out of there the same way I'm going in," the bubbly high school junior teased her doctor.
"Don't worry, you will," the surgeon replied.
A few hours later, Javona was without most of her brain function - forever blind, deaf, unable to move, talk, think or eat on her own.
Her heart still beats and she can breathe with assistance, but she is in a persistent vegetative state, much like Terri Schiavo or, a generation ago, Karen Ann Quinlan.
And now - like them - she is the subject of an impending court battle, one that will pit father against mother over whether to let their daughter die................
Kin battle over daughter's life support
8mm
Miracles do happen.