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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