No Brain Damage for Revived Toddler (very good news...

[Noordam]

AP News

November 11, 2003
No Brain Damage for Revived Toddler
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 5:49 a.m. ET

ORANGE, Calif. (AP) -- Early tests on a toddler who was revived nearly two hours after she was presumed drowned found no signs of brain damage, a family lawyer said.

Her doctor, however, warned that the risk of damage remained high.

Twenty-month-old Mackayala Jespersen has been in critical condition since she was revived Friday -- 40 minutes after doctors had declared her dead -- and her vital signs were stable Monday, said Dr. James Cappon at the Children's Hospital of Orange County.

``The small progress that she has made is surprising and at some level encouraging,'' Cappon said.

He added: ``She is at very high risk to have sustained some damage, even permanent damage, but the extent of which remains to be determined.''

..more at article....

[JNelson6563]

1. Remarkable!!

What a nice surprise! After I heard how long it was before she'd been revived I figured brain-damage was a foregone conclusion.

I don't remember ever being so glad to have been wrong. :-)

Julie

[Guaranteed]

2. I saw a couple of people involved interviewed last night

on Countdown. The photographer taking pictures of the toddlers body said that he saw her breathing but didn't think anything of it because he'd "seen dead bodies breathing before." I thought that this was "odd," to say the least, so I looked up dead people breathing on the net...this is a "newly discovered phenomenon" that a nurse stumbled upon in 2000. The article said that breathing can occur while the brain stem is deteriorating after death. This lady, back in 2000, actually blocked a woman's breathing tube in order to stop her breathing after she was "dead" because she was getting irritated by it.

By the way, the only reason that toddler wasn't put in a body bag and suffocated to death was that the coroner's office showed up late. THAT'S the miracle of this story.

These people are incompetent bastards. It makes me want to revoke my status as an organ donor. They are WAY too quick to call people dead. Even when they're still breathing? Please.

[lostnfound]

3. YAYYY!! So glad for toddler, and parents too..

who will get the second chance so many others have prayed for.

[mike6640]

4. what a relief

I saw the original article this weekend and was amazed.

As a parent, I can empathise with the emotional roller coaster the parents must have gone thru.

So glad the child is all right.

[SoCalDem]

5. What I noticed on the reports was this...

a very dangerous pool for someone with twin 20 month old toddlers.. It had NO fence and was just a few feew away from the sliding door.. We had no pool but when ours were young, we put a special pin lock high up on the slider so that they would not "escape".. These are about $6.00 at a hardward store.. A small price to pay for a child's life

[lostnfound]

7. Parents were a bit negligent but they were definitely trying..

This article clarified that the father "had recently removed an old fence surrounding it and had attempted to install a new one".."but discovered that the prefabricated barrier he purchased from a home-improvement store needed additional parts to be secured and had yet to finish the project" according to a neighbor. He had been working on it 'for days'.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/orange/la-me-drown9nov09,0,7241353.story?coll=la-editions-orange

As the parent of a toddler, I can sympathize..sometimes life is really, really hard and sometimes ordinary problems become big obstacles, that get in the way of doing the safest thing. We have no idea what has been going on in this family's life during the last few weeks.

I'm sure that man is going through absolute hell.

[Occulus]

10. Perhaps this is indeed one of those

small, everyday miracles we see from time to time. Events coincide that a serious and deadly accident occurs, but everything goes perfectly so that there are no serious injuries.

I can only hope this baby ends up being perfectly normal.

[Pavlovs DiOgie]

6. Truly a miracle

Wow...just amazing!

[kimchi]

8. Indeed, a miracle.

But she isn't out of the woods yet--I don't think they will know if she has even slight brain damage until she is up and about.

[jarab]

9. Wonderful news !! n/t (speechless)

...O...

[MnFats]

11. kids, water, it just seems to me..

....i've covered a fair number of tragedies in my time and one always feels great sympathy for anyone who suffers such a loss, but....when you have kids around water, any body of water, down to a little tiny plastic backyard pool, you NEVER take your eyes off the kid.
i get extremely pissed when i see parents take little kids to the beach, leave them at the water's edge and settle into a lawn chair to read some cheesy novel....it's a wonder there aren't more tragedies...NEVER,never leave kids alone around water...