Through tears, the mother of an Oakland teenager who was removed from breathing machines almost five years after being declared brain dead, said Tuesday she would fight all over again to try to save her daughter.
“I gave up everything for Jahi, and I have no regrets. Not one,” Nailah Winkfield said about her deceased daughter, Jahi McMath. “The only regret I ever had was bringing her to the hospital to get her tonsils removed.”
During a press conference in the San Francisco office of her attorney, Christopher Dolan, she said she’s heartbroken and feels lost but is also proud because McMath beat everyone’s expectations.
“She defied all the odds. When they said Jahi would only last for two weeks, Jahi lived four-and-a-half years,” she said.
Winkfield’s comments came almost two weeks after McMath — whose case grabbed worldwide attention in 2013 — succumbed to bleeding, liver failure and complications from her severe brain injury at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J. on June 22. She was 17.
Winkfield quit her job, sold her house and left her other children and family behind to move to New Jersey in 2013 with McMath, who was declared brain dead by UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland doctors following complications from a nose and throat operation.
New Jersey is the only U.S. state where families can reject brain-death diagnosis on religious grounds.
“My child was never dead, she was always alive. And I thank God that the state of New Jersey recognized that,” Winkfield said.
“I don’t know what my life is going to be like anymore, because everything I did revolved around Jahi,” Winkfield said while wiping away tears.
“I want to paint her nails, and I want to comb her hair and brush her teeth and talk to her and watch TV with her and let her know what’s on TV. And I can’t do that no more,” she said.
Winkfield spoke at the conference along with her brother Omari Sealey, her husband Marvin Winkfield and Dolan.
She told of her last moments with her daughter. On June 22, just ahead of a surgery, Winkfield she she noticed McMath looking sick in her bed.
“She didn’t have that same look that she always had that I looked for. And so I spoke with her and I said ‘Jahi, if you’re ready to go, and you’re tired, you don’t have to do this for me.’ I said ‘you have my permission.’ ”
A few hours later McMath’s heart stopped and doctors tried unsuccessfully to revive her. Then they removed the ventilator, Winkfield said.
“It was so weird not seeing her on it. It was so quiet when I went to see her to say goodbye to her. I guess I hadn’t heard that much silence in four-and-a-half years…I felt that she was at peace,” Winkfield said.
“I told her of course that I loved her and how amazing she was. And I said ‘Jahi, I’m so proud of you to decide to leave this earth on your own, and not letting some hospital take you out,’ ” Winkfield said.
“I’m so proud for that. Because she really fixed them,” Winkfield said. “She showed them, ‘You will not kill me, I will leave here myself.’ ”
The family will hold funeral services for McMath at Acts Full Gospel Church on Friday morning and she will be buried at a Hayward cemetery, Dolan said.
But the legal battles stemming from the controversy over McMath’s diagnoses — a federal court case seeking to correct the record about when McMath died, and a malpractice and wrongful death case filed in California — may continue for years, Dolan said.
He noted because McMath has died, the malpractice element of the state case will likely be nullified. He said the death certificate for McMath from Alameda County listing her date of death as Dec. 12, 2013, “isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on,” as a doctor didn’t sign it.
Dolan added that an autopsy was performed on McMath in New Jersey, and the death certificate from that state lists causes for her death on June 22 as bleeding, hypovolemic shock, liver failure, and a serious brain injury.
McMath’s case could also have lasting impact on the medical community.
In April, her case headlined Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics’ annual conference, marking the 50th anniversary of the landmark report that set the medical standard defining brain death.
Winkfield said she feels her daughter — who she spent years caring for around the clock with the aid of nurses — waited to make sure she would be OK before passing.
“And so I have to be, because I promised her that I will be alright, and I don’t want to lie to her.”
After taking some time to put her life back together, Winkfield said she wants to become an advocate and change laws worldwide so no other parent will ever feel they don’t have a choice in whether their child lives or dies.
“Stop pulling the plug on your people,” she said Tuesday. “Stop letting the doctors tell you to prematurely disconnect your family members.”
Winkfield said she wants her daughter’s case to create lasting change, and is proud McMath has already brought so much attention to the issue of brain death, and the choices families have.
“Most people have to stand up and do what I’m doing to get heard. Jahi got heard with silence,” she said.
“That little black girl from Oakland made history.”
Staff writer David DeBolt contributed to this story.
Below are copies of both death certificates provided by Christopher Dolan.