Brain-dead baby’s heart stops after transfer to home
Texas Children’s Hospital Tuesday transferred the body of a brain-dead baby to his parents’ home, but their plan to keep him hooked up to a ventilator there ended prematurely when his heart stopped beating soon after arrival.
The chain of events ends a nearly three-week-long ordeal in which Mario and Ana Patricia Torres took Texas Children’s to court to attempt to force the hospital to continue ventilator treatment to 10-month-old Nick despite two doctors determining his brain had irreversibly lost all function, the legal definition of death. Because of the ventilator, a heartbeat remained.
It stopped about 5 p.m. Tuesday, two hours after the boy was transported home, where his parents had arranged for the ventilator care, a compromise with Texas Children’s authorized by the Harris County Medical Examiner. They brought Nick to the hospital after he was found unconscious and unresponsive in a bathtub on Sept. 24.
A spokesman said Monday that the Harris County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the circumstances that led to the death.
“Even though you know the baby was brain dead, it was incredibly sad when the heart stopped,” said Dr. Joseph Varon, chief medical officer at United MemorialMedical Center, who assisted the family in bringing Nick home. “The whole family was crying at the bedside.”
Neither the family nor their lawyer would comment, said a spokeswoman for the lawyer, citing a confidentiality agreement they and the hospital signed.
In a statement announcing the transfer, Texas Children’s said, “We continue to do everythingwe reasonably can to support the Torres family in this very tragic and difficult situation.” The hospital did not update the statement after the baby’s heart stopped beating.
The transfer of a braindead patient to a home where ventilator treatment is continued is highly unusual but not unprecedented. The most high-profile case involved a California girl transferred to ahospital and then to a New Jersey home in 2015, two days after a death certificate was issued. But one medical ethicist said there probably have been a dozen such cases in all. The CaliforniaNew Jersey girl stayed on mechanical support for three years before her liver gave out.
In most cases, Varon said, the deterioration of organs stops the mechanical support soon.
Varon said Nick’s heartbeat gradually weakened before it gave out. He said Nick was generally in bad shape, with numerous organs deteriorating as a result of the brain death.
The equipment and care team the family assembled at home was impressive, Varon said. The ventilator and other equipment was donated.
The matter dates to Ana Torres’ discovery of Nick underwater in the family bathtub. He was rushed to Texas Children’s Hospital in The Woodlands, where he was immediately placed on a ventilator, his pulse weak, his body temperature at a life-threatening level and his appearance “toxic.”
Doctors declared him brain-dead twice, on Sept. 27 at Texas Children’s Hospital-The Woodlands and then again on Sept. 30, after his transfer to the hospital’s Texas Medical Center campus at the request of the family.
After the first judgment, the Torres’ hired a lawyer to prevent Texas Children’s from disconnecting the ventilator and other support. The petition, filed in Harris County, claimed the hospital was “rushing to make a decision” and sought more than $1 million.
The judge gave the family more time, but two judges subsequently ruled in Texas Children’s favor that the child is deceased. The second, which was handed down by the 14th Court of Appeals Friday, said Texas Children’s could remove the ventilator Monday at 5 p.m.
The transfer of Nick to the Torres home was a compromise supported by both sides. It ended the litigation.