November 14, 2003
Revived Girl Baffles Medical Experts
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
FULLERTON, Calif. (AP) -- Detective Mike Kendrick began photographing
the body of a little girl on an emergency room table for an
investigation of a drowning.
Then, through the lens, he saw her chest move. Just spasms, he
thought. Then he saw it move again. And again.
``Am I seeing things? Does she look like she's breathing?'' Kendrick
asked his partner.
Less than an hour earlier, Kendrick had broken the news to the girl's
mother that she had been pronounced dead by doctors. Minutes earlier,
he stood by as the mother said goodbye to her daughter.
But 20-month-old Mackayala Jespersen was indeed alive. On Friday, she
was in serious condition at Children's Hospital of Orange County,
where she was transferred after being revived.
Her case has baffled hospital and emergency workers. They had
struggled to revive her with CPR, breathing tubes, a heated blanket.
How could they have missed the fact that the toddler was alive?
The Medical Board of California has launched an inquiry into whether
physician error played a role, although the state Department of Health
Services already has found that Anaheim Memorial Hospital followed
proper protocol.
The girl's family declined to be interviewed by The Associated Press.
On Friday, the girl was breathing without a ventilator but was not
fully alert. She was moving her eyes and her body somewhat, hospital
spokeswoman Denise Almazan said. Earlier in the week, one of the
girl's doctors said brain scans showed no serious brain damage.
Mackayala slipped out the back door of her family's home in Fullerton,
about 30 miles south of Los Angeles, on Nov. 7. A family member found
the girl floating face-down in the 52-degree water of the swimming
pool shortly after 9 a.m., according to police reports and emergency
workers.
The girl's mother, Melissa Jespersen, placed a frantic 911 call.
Minutes later, two police officers arrived and began performing
cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
``We did CPR for six or seven minutes. It seemed like a million
years,'' said one of the officers, Steve Rubio.
At one point, Mackayala spit up water, or perhaps it was forced from
her lungs by the chest compressions.
Paramedics arrived and took Mackayala by ambulance to the hospital.
Kendrick and his partner, Detective Brent Rebert, were driving to the
Jespersen home when they got word that Mackayala had been pronounced
dead at 10:06 a.m.
At the home, Kendrick took the mother into her daughter's bedroom, sat
her on the bed and told her the news. She went limp, fell to the floor
and curled into a fetal position.
``The look on this mom's face was absolute horror and disbelief,'' he
said.
The two detectives put her in their car. ``All the way to the
hospital, she kept saying, `This isn't true. God wouldn't take her at
this age,''' Kendrick said.
At Anaheim Memorial, the detectives escorted her into a room off the
ER to say farewell to her daughter. A few minutes later, they began
the routine of photographing the body and making notes.
The heart monitor had a flat line. Her breathing tube had been
disconnected. Her body was still wrapped in a heating blanket that had
apparently been used to try to raise her body temperature. By all
appearances, Mackayala was dead.
Then, at 10:45 a.m. -- 39 minutes after she had been pronounced dead
-- her chest appeared to spasm. At first, the detectives thought it
was releasing gas -- a natural process after death. But the spasms
continued and became longer.
``It looks like she's breathing,'' Kendrick told his partner. ``Go and
get somebody.''
Rebert returned with a nurse, who put a stethoscope to the girl's
chest. Doctors raced in. Machines were turned back on. Mackayala had a
pulse. The two police officers shook their heads in disbelief.
Kendrick had the job of telling Mackayala's mother that her daughter
was alive. This time, she fell to her knees and thanked God.
Three days later, Kendrick and another officer stopped by the hospital
to visit Mackayala. ``We were a little bit worried about how they
would react to us. But we couldn't stay away,'' he said.
He got a hug from Mackayala's mother.
``She asked if I would come back and visit Mackayala when she comes
home,'' Kendrick said. ``I said sure.''
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