A 3-year-old girl in Mexico was pronounced dead twice earlier this month, after it was discovered she was still breathing at her funeral.
The family of Camila Roxana Martinez Mendoza is now suing the hospital involved for negligence, according to El Universal San Luis Potosí.
Camila was taken to Salinas de Hidalgo Basic Community Hospital for dehydration on August 17. The young girl was experiencing vomiting, stomach pain and a fever.
Camila was reportedly given paracetamol and released from the hospital. But Camila’s parents saw her condition deteriorate, and a private doctor urged them to re-admit her to the Salinas de Hidalgo Basic Community Hospital after his own methods had failed to help.
Camila’s mother claimed the hospital staff neglected her daughter during her second visit. She said they took a long time to give her oxygen and struggled to give her intravenous fluids.
“They didn’t put it on her because they couldn’t find her little veins. Finally, a nurse managed it,” Mary Jane Peralta told El Universal San Luis Potosí.
Camila was eventually taken to a locked room where Mary could not reach her, the traumatized mother claimed. The 3-year-old girl was then pronounced dead by the hospital.
Peralta said that before Camila was taken away, she could still feel her daughter hug her.
“She still was hugging me, they took her away and told me, ‘You have to let her rest in peace,'” Peralta recalled.
At Camila’s funeral the next day, Peralta noticed condensation on her daughter’s glass casket cover. Peralta suggested that Camila was still breathing and was told by other attendees that she was hallucinating out of grief.
Camila’s grandmother then realized that the young girl’s eyes were moving. The “deceased” girl reportedly had a heart rate of 97 beats per minute.
Camila was then rushed to a hospital where she was declared dead a second time. Her heart rate dropped to 35 beats per minute in the ambulance, according to her mother.
The first cause of death was listed as dehydration, while the second was cerebral edema, or brain swelling.
“I have no grudge against the doctors [who] went to extreme [measures],” Peralta said of the lawsuit. “I only ask that the doctors, nurses and directors be changed so that it does not happen again.”
The San Luis Potosí State Attorney General’s Office is currently investigating the case.
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