Jahi McMath's family seeks to move brain-dead girl to another facility

[cosmicone]

26. It was probably

a cardiac arrest due to acute hypoxia -- not uncommon in someone with excessive lymphoid tissue in the oro and nasopharynx.

These are extremely difficult cases to anesthetize and obesity compounds the problem because there is excess demand for keeping BP up in order to perfuse the entire body. The airway has to be maintained all during surgery and the anesthetic is given through the same airway. The duration of surgery makes it impossible to use IV anesthetics like propofol.

If this was due to a cardiac arrest during surgery, there would be a record of the cardiac monitor. However, from what I understand, she was doing well and already in recovery when this happened -- which suggests a postop edema of the lining of the nose and throat which caused the airway obstruction.

I don't know what the standard of care is for ENT surgery but if I were the surgeon, I wouldn't try to operate on both the throat and nose in one sitting. Separating the two surgeries by a few weeks would avoid the possibility of both airways getting blocked by edema at the same time.