MONTEGO BAY, St James – Attorneys representing the family of Nashawn Johnson, the toddler who died suddenly after minor surgery at the Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) on Monday, and the hospital’s administration have agreed to postpone any postmortem on the child until the family can secure an independent pathologist.

The lawyers have also asked for a meeting with the hospital’s administrators to determine the sequence of events that led to the death of the two-year-old after what doctors described as a successful surgery to separate the webbed fingers of the boy’s left hand.

On Monday the grief-stricken family demanded answers after learning that Nashawn, who had successfully completed the four-hour surgery, had suddenly died in the recovery room.

But hospital representatives said they too could only speculate as to the cause of death of the two-year-old as the surgery was successful. They said they would be able to speak to the matter of the cause of his death until an autopsy was performed.

The boy’s condition is known as Syndactyly – a congenital defect that saw three fingers of his left hand from his little finger to his middle fingers attached, a birth defect that also affected his identical twin brother Taeshawn, though not so much as to require surgery.

Following Monday’s tragedy, Montego Bay pediatrician, Winsome Miller-Rowe, said it was unlikely that the surgery would have caused his death, noting that it was more likely caused by a complication associated with the operation.

There are four types of Syndactyly:

. “complete” Syndactyly when the fingers are completely joined together;

.”incomplete” Syndactyly when the join involves only part of the sides of the fingers:

. “simple” Syndactyly whereby the join between the fingers just involves skin and flesh and

.”complex” Syndactyly whereby the bones are joined together.

Nashawn most likely had the “simple” form as according to the boy”s mother, Charlene Grant, his fingers were only attached by skin.