FILE - This undated file photo provided by the McMath family and Omari Sealey shows Jahi McMath. McMath remains on life support at Children's Hospital Oakland nearly a week after doctors declared her brain dead, following a supposedly routine tonsillectomy. Her family was expected to appear with hospital officials in court Monday, Dec. 23, 2013 to announce the name of the independent physician they have chosen to provide a second opinion on the girl's condition. (AP Photo/Courtesy of McMath Family and Omari Sealey, File)
OAKLAND — With a family fighting a hospital to keep their brain-dead daughter on life support just days before Christmas, a California judge on Monday ordered a second medical evaluation for 13-year-old Jahi McMath.
Jahi experienced complications following a tonsillectomy at Children’s Hospital in Oakland.
As her family sat stone-faced in the front row of the courtroom, an Alameda County judge called for Jahi to be independently examined by Paul Graham Fisher, the chief of child neurology at Stanford University School of Medicine.
The examination was expected to occur later on Monday.
Hospital staff and Fisher will conduct an electroencephalogram, or EEG, and tests to see if blood is still flowing to Jahi’s brain.
Doctors at Children’s Hospital concluded the girl was brain dead on Dec. 12 and wanted to remove her from life support.
Jahi’s family wants to keep her hooked up to a respirator, and eventually have her moved to another facility.
The family said they believe she is still alive, and that the hospital should not remove her from the ventilator without their permission.
“It’s wrong for someone who made mistakes on your child to just call the coroner ... and not respect the family’s feeling or rights” Sandra Chatman, Jahi’s grandmother, said in the hallway outside the courtroom.
“I know Jahi suffered and it tears me up.”
The family’s attorney also asked Judge Evelio Grillo to allow a third evaluation by Paul Byrne, a pediatric professor at the University of Toledo. The hospital’s attorney objected to Byrne, saying he is not a pediatric neurologist.
The judge is expected to take up the request to use Byrne, and another hearing was scheduled for Tuesday morning, Christmas Eve.
Jahi’s family says the girl bled profusely after a routine tonsillectomy and then went into cardiac arrest before being declared brain dead.
Outside the courtroom, Dr. David Durand, chief of pediatrics at Children’s, said, that staff have the “deepest sympathy” for the family, but that Jahi is brain dead.
“The ventilator cannot reverse the brain death that has occurred and it would be wrong to give false hope that Jahi will ever come back to life,” he said.
Christopher Dolan, the family’s attorney, vowed to keep Jahi hooked to the ventilator through Christmas, vowing to file an appeal if the judge orders her removed from the machine on Tuesday.
“I am confident she’ll live through Christmas,” a visibly weary Dolan said after the hearing.
Given the very public battle over Jahi’s treatment, the judge pleaded with attorneys on both sides to continue speaking with each other and the family to help prepare for his eventual final order.
“This is a very, very charged case. The stakes are very high because there’s a young girl involved,” Grillo said.
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Jason Dearen can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/JHDearen
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