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| In this hospital surveillance photo released by the Phoenix Police Department on Monday, Dec. 3, 2012, a woman is seen with her 11-year-old daughter, a leukemia patient who had her arm amputated and a heart catheter inserted due to an infection. Authorities say the woman inexplicably took the girl from the hospital last week. Police say that if the catheter is left in too long it could lead to a deadly infection. The family’s identity is being withheld but they are calling the girl Emily. |
PHOENIX (AP) -- Emily has leukemia. She just underwent a month of chemotherapy and had her right arm amputated after suffering complications. Doctors say she is at risk of dying from an infection.
But the sick 11-year-old isn't in a hospital.
Her
mother last week inexplicably unhooked a tube that had been carrying
vital medication through the girl's heart, got her out of bed and
changed her clothes. Then she did something police say is even more
baffling - she walked the child out of the hospital, a tiny tube still
protruding from her chest.
Doctors say the
device, if left unattended, could allow bacteria to quickly enter her
body, leading to a potentially deadly infection.
Phoenix
police are now on a desperate search for the mother and daughter, last
seen Wednesday night on surveillance video leaving Phoenix Children's
Hospital, the mother pushing an IV stand, the small child with a
bandaged arm amputated above the elbow walking beside her.
Authorities
have no explanation for why the child's mother - 35-year-old Norma
Bracamontes - removed the girl from the hospital before her treatment
was complete, but they say it's imperative she return her immediately.
They're even considering criminal charges.
"Certainly
from our standpoint, we are looking at it thinking, is this negligence
in failing to provide Emily the proper medical care that she requires?"
Phoenix police Sgt. Steve Martos said Tuesday. "They should know by now
what is required, what Emily needs, so it baffles us that anyone, any
parent with a child like this, with leukemia and an amputated arm, and
now you put them in this situation where it's potentially fatal, we just
don't understand why they would not seek medical treatment."
Authorities
speculate the mother might have been concerned with paying the child's
hospital bill, but her motivation remains a mystery. The family lives a
"nomadic" life without a permanent residence, but they have relatives in
Arizona, California and Mexico, none of whom have been able to provide
police with information about their whereabouts, he said.
U.S.
Border Patrol agents stopped the girl's father, Luis Bracamontes, 46,
as he crossed into Arizona from Mexico over the weekend, but the man
denied any involvement in removing his daughter from the hospital and
said he didn't know where she was.
Martos said
doctors, who can't discuss Emily's case publicly due to privacy laws,
told authorities that when Emily's mother removed the tubing, she failed
to put a cap on the open line leading into the girl's body. That's left
the young girl susceptible to a potentially deadly infection.
The cap was found in the girl's hospital bathroom.
Dr.
William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt
University Medical Center, said Emily's immune system is already
compromised from the cancer and chemotherapy.
"If bacteria get into the blood stream that can cause a serious infection," Schaffner said.
The open catheter could serve as a pathway for bacteria, he said. An infection is not only possible, but likely, he said.
"These are life-threatening infections, particularly in young children who've had leukemia and chemotherapy," he said.
The longer the girl is away from medical care, the greater the risk of contamination, he said.
If infection does set in, he said, the girl could die "in a few days or worse, hours."
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