Autopsy For Botched Transplant Teen

Medical examiners will determine what ultimately killed a Mexican teenager who survived a botched heart-lung transplant but died days after an even rarer second transplant.

State medical examiners will conduct the autopsy Monday on the remains of Jesica Santillan, 17, said Clyde Gibbs, an investigator with the state medical examiner's office.

Doctors at Duke University Medical Center in Durham declared Jesica dead Saturday after more than a day without brain activity.

Duke reported Jesica's death to the medical examiner's office in Chapel Hill, hospital spokesman Richard Puff said, due to the error that had surgeons transplant type A organs into Jesica, who had type O blood. Her body had rejected the new organs.

A lawyer for the girl's parents said an autopsy was appropriate.

"We just want to make sure we know what the cause of death was," attorney Kurt Dixon said. "If there's going to be legal action down the road, you want to have a definite cause of death. You don't want to speculate about that."

Jesica's own heart had a deformity that kept her lungs from getting oxygen into her blood. She received a heart-lung transplant Feb. 7.

She was near death by the time the second set was placed in her body early Thursday. By early Friday, the newest organs were performing well but Jesica's brain was swelled and bleeding.

After doctor's declared Jesica's death early Saturday afternoon, the family said it wanted to seek a second opinion from doctors outside Duke before drugs that kept her heart beating and machines that kept her lungs working were stopped.

Duke doctors waited about 3½ hours after declaring Jesica's death before deciding themselves to end the measures, Puff said.

The hospital acted before the family could contact physicians able to offer an outside opinion on Jesica's condition, Dixon said.

Mack Mahoney, a family friend and Jesica's chief benefactor, said the Santillan family was in seclusion Sunday. He said funeral arrangements were expected to be completed Sunday and separate family and public services were likely to be held Tuesday.

Mahoney said he thinks the family will return Jesica's body to Mexico for burial, but that hadn't been decided.

Relatives have said Jesica's family paid a smuggler to bring them from their small town near Guadalajara, Mexico, to the United States so she could get medical care.