MOMENTS before she breathed her last conscious word in the corridors of the Spanish Town Hospital in St Catherine, 14-year-old Chris-Ann Dunk penned what would be her final school assignment, an essay lauding the meticulous work of world famous Jamaican scientist Dr TP Lecky.

But ironically, her family is now preparing to sue the hospital, adamant that her demise was caused by medical personnel who were less than meticulous in administering drugs to the asthmatic teen.

It was a morose group of four that visited the Observer two Wednesdays ago, intent on telling their story in the hope that some staff member at the facility might be moved to tell “the truth” about the girl’s death, which, the family feel, has been hidden.

At the time, their agony had been heightened by the third postponement of an autopsy — being done by an independent pathologist the family hired — because Chris-Ann’s docket, which had been filed at the Spanish Town Hospital, could not be found.

For the child’s maternal grandmother, Leonora McCall, Monday, October 3, 2011 marked the beginning of a nightmare.

She relayed to the Sunday Observer with marked vividity, an almost slide by slide recollection of the moments in which her only grandchild expired.

McCall had always been the one to take Chris-Ann to the doctor when she had an asthma attack, so there was no reason to believe this day would end differently, but it did.

“Monday, October 3rd I took Chris-Ann to the Spanish Town Hospital because she was having an asthma attack. She took her school bag with her to the hospital because she had some homework that was due the Tuesday, and while she was on the nebuliser she did her homework,” McCall told the Sunday Observer.

“I said to her ‘why you have to walk with your school bag?’ and she said ‘grandma, mi have to do mi schoolwork because I am going to school tomorrow’. They gave her three nebulisers first, behind each other. Then they gave her another three, one every half-hour,” she recounted.

“When she got the last nebuliser we were there listening for her name to call… (It was) about two-and-a-half hours before her name was called. We went in, the doctor said she had an infection on her chest, they took some blood from her, he wrote on a bit of paper and gave it to a nurse,” McCall said.

They waited some more while, according to McCall, the nurses chatted and laughed merrily at their station.

“I was going to say ‘remember you have somebody out here waiting’, but I didn’t want to say it in case them run mi out. Anyways, one came out and she said ‘where is Chris-Ann?’ and mi say ‘si her here’. Chris-Ann sat on a chair, she (the nurse) came, she pulled the covering from the IV (needle in the girl’s arm). She took a piece of cotton and wiped the spot, she gave me the cotton to hold and the top for the IV.

“While she was putting the syringe with a white medication in her hand, I remember it reached half the amount, and I said ‘why did you give her so much?’. She (nurse) said it was Augmentin (an antibiotic used to treat different infections caused by bacteria, such as sinusitis, pneumonia, ear infections, bronchitis, urinary tract infections, and infections of the skin).

“When she (Chris-Ann) done get the medication, the nurse walked away. Chris-Ann got up and I am walking with her,” McCall said, rising to her own feet to demonstrate the tragic events that began to unfold.

“Like she get the medication here so, and when she walked to about here (a few feet away) she pitch (spasmed) and when she pitch, she start to scratch and she shout to her mother (who had now arrived) and say ‘mommy bring mi pump (asthmatic inhaler) come’, and when her mother gave her the pump she held it and squeeze it two times and the pump drop out of her hand. When the pump drop, she collapse.

“Yuh know when yuh kill goat and the eye turn over? A so her eye turn over, and her neck went back like this, her tongue fall from her mouth and turn blue,” the elderly woman demonstrated, caught up in the memory of the moments when she thinks the life of her 14-year-old grandchild with the adorable face, flickered out.

“Her mother take her up and seh ‘oooonuh a go meck mi one daughter dead?’, and she lift her and was taking her to a stretcher, and her mother could hardly manage her.

“Dem (medical personnel) come for her and put her on a stretcher and mi start to bawl, and her mother a bawl, and they were there trying to revive her. Some a say ‘yuh feel pulse?’ The others a say ‘no, mi don’t feel any”, and the other a seh ‘yes, mi feel pulse’,” she alleged.

“Dem have her in there, dem not saying anything to me and is from ten minutes to six she collapse and dem have her there till 11:15 the night. They told me that they called three hospitals and none could take her… When 11:15, they said they were going to put her on a life support machine, and they had the dead child on that machine till Wednesday before them transfer her to KPH (Kingston Public Hospital) and put on another one,” the child’s grandmother claimed.

Chris-Ann, the rest of the family explained, was taken off that machine that Friday, without their permission, and pronounced dead.

But the family, confused about how routine treatment could go so horribly wrong, want an explanation for the series of events that led to that final pronouncement, and believe errors made by the medical personnel may have caused the girl’s death.

“They should not have given her all that medication like that, it should have been put on a drip,” McCall insisted. “Dem have her and they kept telling us to talk to her because she can hear, but dem know she died from Monday,” she alleged, referring to their visits to the hospital to see the child who, they were told at the time, was in a coma.

Christopher, the girl’s father, who had sat motionless for most of the interview with the Sunday Observer, shared what he said he was told about the death of his only child.

“A doctor told me she was brain dead and that she had zero chances of living. He told us soon we would have to make a decision as to take her off the life support. Personally, I think that’s why they transferred her from Spanish Town Hospital the Wednesday night,” he said, his voice in monotone.

The family says that they were told none of them could travel in the ambulance with the child — who they said already looked like a corpse by then — on its journey from the Spanish Town Hospital to KPH.

Chris-Ann’s distraught mother, Genieve Stephenson-Mitchell, who, except for muttering one or two words, had also kept silent throughout the interview, on hearing this, left the room. McCall, her mother, who had been bravely relating the story, could no longer hold back her anguish and started crying in harsh sobs.

“Yuh know how dat hurt mi? Mi daughter not doing well, she not eating. Mi son seh mi muss watch her because him don’t like how she look, and she unable to have any more children,” she said worriedly.

“Miss, a two somebody mi fraid a — police and doctor. Mi tell dem if anything do mi, meck mi stay a yard an’ dead,” she said fiercely.

At this point, Stephenson-Mitchell returned to the room, her eyes puffy from crying and lack of sleep, the rest of her face drawn, the tiny silver earrings her daughter wore on her last day on earth, in her ears. In her hand she clutched photos of Chris-Ann, from babe to teenager, her face alive with laughter at times, serene at others. The bereaved mother uttered her first full sentences since entering the Observer building some 45 minutes prior.

“She was a jovial person. She liked to play, she was not shy, no matter what event, she was in it. She wanted to be an air hostess. She was a member of the Portmore Pacesetters Marching Band, and she was a member from she was six years old,” she said.

Soon it was obvious from her expression that all those lovely memories had coalesced into a final, dreadful one, as she remembered her visits to the Intensive Care Unit at KPH, where her child had lain motionless on life support.

“The doctor told me to talk to her. I was saying ‘Chrissy, squeeze mi hand’, but nothing. Mi want back Chris-Ann,” she said, forlorn. “They need to tell us the truth, they kept her till she start to decompose,” she said.

McCall took back the baton from her traumatised daughter who could not continue speaking and related the rest of the tale.

“Friday now, when wi go Public (KPH) go look for her, her face swell. She turn black and shine and her mouth cover with gauze. The mother went in and I saw her come back out crying. I asked her what it was. She said she searched Chris-Ann, and she said ‘mommy, they have two nice blanket cover her’, and when she moved the blankets, she saw that she was in a black bag. When she bent over her she smelt a foul smell. She start to decompose,” she said, her voice roughening.

“We leave there quarter to eight Friday night and by time we reach home ten past nine, them call wi seh to come back right away. That’s why dem tek her off the machine an’ call wi, ’cause dem know wi si di bag,” McCall alleged.

“Her mother asked why the black bag. One of the nurse said it was to keep her warm, but I spoke with a doctor, he said they put her in the body bag because she started to smell and that was to keep the scent down. They are a wicked set of people.

“They said she passed on nine past nine the Friday night, but I told them she died from ten to six the Monday. Dem kill off mi one little ‘grannie’ (grandchild) and have her there till she rot. It’s a cover-up,” she said, then fell silent.

Chris-Ann’s paternal grandmother, Carleanna Dunkley, wants “justice” for a promising life she said was carelessly shortened.

“I wrote a letter to the prime minister. It’s wrong and so inhumane. It’s crooked. It would never have happened if we were rich,” she said.

Of her granddaughter, who was a ninth grade student at St Catherine High School, she said, “there was no song she didn’t catch, she only had to hear it one time. She was a good student, a happy student. She was going places”.

As for the young girl’s father, he is resolute that the quest for answers can only end one way.

“We are taking legal action and we are advising all our family and friends not to go to Spanish Town Hospital. The only way we will stop is if they put out a contract on us,” he said, in a steely voice.

Those answers, when they come, may or may not suit the grieving family.

A local surgeon, who opted not to be named for this story, said a patient who is deemed brain dead can exhibit symptoms of decomposition if their supportive care is not kept up. “They get bedsores when this supportive care falls off,” the medical practitioner told Sunday Observer.

“The uninitiated may think that the patient is rotting because of the presence of these sores,” he added. He also noted that sometimes there are pressure ulcers on the skin of comatose patients. These give off a foul odour, which might give a confused and grieving relative the impression that their loved one is already dead and decomposing.

As for the black bag in which the teen was placed while on a bed in the ICU, the doctor said: “It is not a body bag, it’s a suit which is used to conserve body heat. It has a kind of reflective material inside, like foil. It is part of the supportive care.”

A source linked to the Spanish Town Hospital told this paper the matter is under rigorous investigation. The source said that the medication given to Chris-Ann is normally administered to the child via an inhaler. This time, however, it was given intravenously, resulting in an allergic reaction which was unforeseen. As for the missing docket, the individual said it was not missing but had just been pulled for the investigation.

Speaking with the Sunday Observer on Friday ahead of the child’s burial yesterday, Carleanna Dunkley said the independent autopsy had finally taken place on Wednesday last week.

She claimed it had solidified the family’s original belief that Chris-Ann had died from the Monday after the injection was administered.

“It showed that the child died within 10 to 15 minutes of receiving the injection, so God is good, you cannot hide,” she said.

According to Dunkley, she had also seen the ‘lost’ docket and noted that several pages had “a lot of things crossed out”.

When contacted yesterday, Spanish Town Hospital CEO Mark Martin said the family’s claims have been raised with the Ministry of Health and the South East Regional Health Authority — which directly oversees the hospital.

Martin told Sunday Observer that “it’s a matter under investigation. The family has indicated that they are taking the matter to court, and, as such, I am unable to comment on it at this time.”

(See report of Chris-Ann Dunk’s funeral service on Page 13)