Texas family fighting for 9-year-old daughter declared brain dead
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
From CBS News:
FORT WORTH, Texas — A Texas couple has 10 days to find a hospital willing to keep their young daughter on life support. But doctors in Fort Worth say 9-year-old Payton Summons is brain dead.
Video shows Payton before a cancerous tumor behind her heart cut off her circulation and left her unconscious. "My mom just got done doing my hair and it's so beautiful," she says in the video. Tiffany Hofstetter, Payton's mother, said Payton was staying one night with her grandmother when she woke up. "She screamed for her grandma to help her. And she said that she couldn't breathe," said Hofstetter.
It took medics an hour to get her heart beating again. Two separate tests showed Payton was legally brain dead due to lack of oxygen. Doctors advised the next step was to take her off life support.
But the family fought back with a temporary restraining order, keeping Payton on the breathing machine until October 15. Texas law allows doctors to stop certain life-sustaining measures. But it says the family can appeal. At a hearing on Friday, a judge didn't rule on the temporary restraining order but instead appointed an independent attorney to represent Payton.
"The timeline is up in the air but she has more time to live so this is what we have," said Justin Moore, the family's attorney. A medical ethicist told CBS News brain death should not be negotiable with families as it is a pronouncement of death completely equivalent to cardiac death.
"We still have hope," said Hofstetter. "We still got faith. We are going to get her back there so we can see this baby."
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A sad situation and one in which the family is clearly having difficulty coming to terms with. But brain death is death. Perhaps over the next week, until the restraining order expires, the reality of the situation will sink in with the family.