[Deathwatch] Jesica Santillan, organ recipient, 17

[Deathwatch Central]

Again, thanks to a reader for the reminder. (this one feels a little
odd for the list for some reason)

Teenager in Botched Transplant Dies
By EMERY P. DALESIO, Associated Press Writer

DURHAM, N.C. - Jesica Santillan, the teenager who survived a botched
heart-lung transplant long enough to get an odds-shattering second set
of donated organs, died Saturday, two days after the second transplant.


Doctors declared her brain dead at 1:25 p.m., said Duke University
Medical Center spokesman Richard Puff. She was kept on life support
through the afternoon so family and friends could say goodbye, the
hospital said in a statement. Medication to keep her heart going was
discontinued at 5 p.m.; her heart stopped seven minutes later and a
ventilator was then turned off.

Renee McCormick, a spokeswoman for a charity created to pay Jesica's
medical bills, said the Santillan family didn't know until then that
doctors were taking her off life support.

"They were hysterical," McCormick said. "The family's been treated so
poorly. They're very hurt. These are human beings."

A family lawyer said earlier they didn't want to remove Jesica from
life support until an outside doctor verified she was brain dead. He
could not be reached later Saturday.

Jesica, 17, whose own heart had a deformity that kept her lungs from
getting oxygen into her blood, received a heart-lung transplant Feb. 7.
But because of human error, the organs were of a different blood type,
and her body rejected them.

She was near death by the time the second set was placed in her body
early Thursday. By early Friday, the newest organs were performing well
but Jesica's brain was swelled and bleeding.

In the first operation, Dr. James Jaggers implanted organs from a donor
with type A blood, rather than Jesica's O-positive. In a letter to the
United Network for Organ Sharing, which matches patients with donated
organs, Duke officials said Jaggers and Carolina Donor Services, a
procurement agency, failed to share information about her blood type.

Jaggers, in his first public remarks, said Saturday he had hoped Jesica
would be "one of those lucky few" awaiting heart-lung transplants who
actually receive the surgery and do well.

"Unfortunately, in this case, human errors were made during the
process" to match the organs with the patient, he said in a taped
statement released by Duke.

"I hope that we, and others, can learn from this tragic mistake and
move forward to make the process safer and available to more of those
in need. To do otherwise would fail to properly honor Jesica and her
memory."

Family lawyer Kurt Dixon said Jesica's parents and supporters, who had
remained with her through her hospitalization, would not be available
for comment.

"All of us at Duke University Hospital are deeply saddened by this,"
Dr. William Fulkerson, the hospital's chief executive officer, said
Saturday. "We want Jesica's family and supporters to know that we share
their loss and their grief. We very much regret these tragic
circumstances."

Relatives have said her family paid a smuggler to bring them from their
small town near Guadalajara, Mexico, to the United States so she could
get medical care.

Less than two weeks after the botched operation, a second set of organs
was located — amazingly fast in comparison to the three years Jesica
spent on a waiting list before her first operation. Eighty percent of
patients awaiting transplants die before organs can be found.

Dr. Karen Frush, the hospital's medical director of children's
services, has there was no sure way to tell when the brain damage
occurred. But Mack Mahoney, a family friend and Jesica's chief
benefactor, said doctors told the family it was due to the time Jesica
was connected to life support.

"Life support ruins kidneys, it ruins brains, it ruins all the organs
of the body," he said.

The Santillan family declined to donate any organs from Jesica's body,
Puff said.

Jesica's place on the transplant list was determined by several
factors, including the severity of her illness and her age.

Her immigration status played no role because hospitals may place
non-U.S. citizens on their waiting lists and must give them the same
priority as citizens, said Anne Paschke, spokeswoman for the organ
network. But they cannot perform more than 5 percent of their
transplants on non-citizens.

Heart and lung transplants are rare for teenagers: In the first 11
months of 2002, there were four nationwide for children between the
ages of 11 and 17, UNOS' records show. The previous year, there were
four.