SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) – Family members of 13-year-old Jahi McMath are holding out hope for a miracle recovery after a routine procedure has left the girl brain dead. Last week, McMath went in to Children’s Hospital Oakland to get her tonsils removed. 
 
 She was supposed to go home the next day, but her grandmother noticed severely bleeding from her nose and mouth after the procedure. She soon went into cardiac arrest. 
 
 The child is now hooked up to a ventilator and doctors are telling mother Nailah Winkfield she won’t recover. 
 
 “At this point I’m just all cried out. I have no tears left, so the only thing I can do is stay here,” said Winkfield. “I am not leaving unless she leaves with me because I will not let them pull the plug on my child.” 
 
 Children’s Hospital sent a statement which read, “We are very sad about her condition and our hearts go out to her and her family. We are currently reviewing the case.” 
 
 Oakland Teen Declared Brain Dead Days After Routine Tonsil Surgery playpause 
 
 The family said they have another meeting with doctors Monday, but they want to go above them and meet with hospital directors because they don’t feel that they are getting the answers they need. 
 
 “The family wants to keep her on as long as possible… we believe in miracles and we believe a miracle will happen,” said Winkfield. “I refuse to bury my daughter.” Family members claim that hospital representatives have been pushing them to pull the child off of life support. 
 
 (TM and © Copyright 2013 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.) ||||| Family Wants Brain-Dead Girl Declared Alive SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - The family of a teenager declared legally dead after complications from surgery for sleep apnea is taking its case to void her death certificate to Federal Court. 
 
 Jahi McMath, now 15 years old, underwent the surgery on Dec. 9, 2013 at Children's Hospital Oakland. The hospital is now a part of UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital. 
 
 Her tonsils and adenoids were removed, and her mother Nailah Winkfield claims in a 57-page civil suit the procedure was presented to her as "routine," and doctors described it as successful afterward. 
 
 But McMath soon started bleeding from the mouth so profusely that it had to be caught in a bucket, and although doctors reassured Winkfield that the bleeding was "normal," McMath suffered cardiac arrest and severe brain swelling. Doctors at the hospital pronounced her brain dead on Dec. 12. 
 
 Winkfield says that hospital officials continually pressured her to sign documents authorizing them to take her daughter off life support, and after an intense legal battle a judge in Alameda County Superior Court ruled that McMath met the legal criteria for brain death. 
 
 Before the hospital could take McMath off life support, Winkfield arranged for Jahi's transfer to a medical facility in New Jersey, where state law contains a religious exemption to brain death. 
 
 McMath is still in New Jersey, where she receives "minimal in-home care support," is in "excellent health," with "no skin or organ breakdown" and "irrefutable brain function," Winkfield says in her complaint. 
 
 McMath's family filed a lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court in March for conditional wrongful death, naming the children's hospital and surgeon Frederick Rosen as defendants. 
 
 The federal lawsuit, filed Wednesday in the Northern District of California, involves civil rights claims against the state of California, Alameda County, the Alameda County Department of Public Health, the California Department of Public Health and many of those entities' officials. 
 
 In the federal suit, Winkfield and McMath claim violations of their First, Fifth and 14th Amendment rights, including due process and the right to privacy. 
 
 "These government agencies and officials have failed to provide any process or avenue for Winkfield to prove that Jahi is not brain dead and have summarily, without any hearing, denied to even consider whether Jahi does not meet the criteria for brain death and is therefore alive," Winkfield says in the suit. 
 
 Winkfield says she "wishes to have her daughter's basic human right, to life, restored to her so that she can return to California, and specifically Oakland, the place where Winkfield and Jahi were born and raised, to be surrounded by the love and support of their family." 
 
 She adds, "As it is presently, should Jahi leave New Jersey, and its protections provided by New Jersey's religious exemption to brain death, she could be refused treatment, unplugged, even shot, without repercussion as she is legally dead in California. 
 
 "It is incumbent upon the U.S. District Court to exercise its constitutional and statutory powers and rectify this injustice." 
 
 Winkfield says her Christian religious beliefs "include a conviction requiring the provision of all treatment, care, and nutrition to a body that is living," arguing that Alameda County's actions have violated her right to exercise those beliefs. 
 
 Numerous signs, she says, indicate that her daughter is alive, including the onset of menstruation and multifaceted evidence of brain function - evidence she calls "uncontroverted and overwhelming." 
 
 "Jahi's remarkable strength and resiliency despite the serious brain injury she suffered, and her failure to exhibit the predicted deterioration, proves that 'in accordance with accepted medical standards,' Jahi has not in fact suffered 'irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem,'" Winkfield says in the suit. 
 
 According to the complaint, McMath's neurological status continues to improve, she understands words and she can move her fingers in response to verbal commands. 
 
 Christopher Dolan, McMath and Winkfield's attorney, said in a statement that "the fact that the state refuses to recognize the mountain of evidence that Jahi McMath does not meet brain death criteria is the most grave of injustices." 
 
 "In essence, they proclaim that once she is determined to be brain dead they will never revisit, or reconsider, the death sentence no matter what factual evidence is presented," he said. 
 
 "This is like refusing to reconsider a death sentence when evidence is presented demonstrating that the original conviction was erroneous, and the condemned was innocent." 
 
 The Alameda County Public Health Department did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment on Thursday. ||||| OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — The family of a 13-year-old California girl declared brain dead after tonsil surgery is encountering difficulty in obtaining two surgeries that she needs to undergo before she can be safely transferred to a long-term care facility. 
 
 Omari Sealey, at right, shakes hands with well-wishers Frank Somerville, at left, and his daughter Callie, 9, after Sealy made a statement for the media on the condition of his niece Jahi McMath on Monday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Omari Sealey makes a statement for the media on the condition of his niece Jahi McMath on Monday, Dec. 30, 2013, in Oakland, Calif. Without another court action, a California hospital on Monday could... (Associated Press) 
 
 File - This undated file photo provided by the McMath family and Omari Sealey shows Jahi McMath. The family of a 13-year-old California girl who was declared brain dead after a tonsillectomy said Monday... (Associated Press) 
 
 Children's Hospital of Oakland spokesman Sam Singer gives an update on the condition of Jahi McMath on Monday, Dec. 30, 2013, in Oakland , Calif. Without another court action, a California hospital on... (Associated Press) 
 
 The entrance to the Children's Hospital of Oakland is barricaded on Monday, Dec. 30, 2013, in Oakland , Calif. Without another court action, a California hospital on Monday could unhook a 13-year-old... (Associated Press) 
 
 A lawyer for Children's Hospital Oakland said Tuesday that it is unwilling to allow an outside doctor to fit Jahi McMath with the breathing and feeding tubes that the family has requested. 
 
 The hospital will not permit the procedures to be performed on its premises because Jahi is legally dead in the view of doctors who have examined her, lawyer Douglas Straus wrote in a letter to the girl's family. 
 
 "Performing medical procedures on the body of a deceased human being is simply not something Children's Hospital can do or ask its staff to assist in doing," he said. 
 
 The refusal appeared to reverse the position articulated Monday by a hospital spokesman. He said the hospital would allow a doctor retained by the family to insert a feeding tube and to replace the oral ventilator keeping Jahi's heart beating with a tracheal tube — surgical procedures that would stabilize Jahi if she is moved to a facility willing to keep caring for her. 
 
 Christopher Dolan, the lawyer for Jahi's mother, Nailah Winkfield, said he received the news as he tried to confirm the conditions under which the hospital would have allowed a visiting doctor and nail down the long-term care facility that might accept the girl as a patient. Dolan said he has been talking with the New Beginnings Community Center in Medford, N.Y., an outpatient client for people with traumatic brain injuries, and with an unnamed facility in Arizona. 
 
 The New York facility didn't immediately return calls seeking comment. 
 
 "They're speaking out of both sides of their mouths. They say one thing and we go down that road, and then they say something else," Dolan said of hospital officials. "The hospital said, 'Bring us a doctor' and we said, 'Tell us the conditions' and now, they've wasted a half a day of our time. We don't have much time." 
 
 Hospital spokesman Sam Singer said later: "This is academic. They have not produced a single physician." 
 
 Meanwhile, a state appeals court on Tuesday refused to order the hospital to insert the tubes, saying the issue has to go first to the lower court judge who has ordered the hospital to keep the girl on a ventilator until Jan. 7 pending the family's appeal. The 1st District Court of Appeal said it would consider the issue at a later date, if necessary. 
 
 Straus, the hospital's lawyer, reiterated in his letter that the hospital would release the girl's body as soon as her family provided a detailed plan outlining how the move would be accomplished and written permission from the coroner. But he said neither has been submitted. 
 
 "No facility has stated, unconditionally or otherwise, that it is prepared to immediately accept Jahi's body," he wrote. 
 
 Jahi underwent a tonsillectomy and related procedures at Children's Hospital on Dec. 9 to treat sleep apnea. Her family said she went into cardiac arrest after she started coughing up blood in the recovery room. She was declared brain dead three days later. The hospital then moved to take her off the machines that are keeping her heart and lungs going a few days before Christmas. 
 
 Doctors at Children's Hospital and an independent pediatric neurologist from Stanford University have concluded Jahi is brain dead. 
 
 Her family, citing religious beliefs and the hope that she will pull through, wants to continue life support. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo initially ruled that doctors could remove her from the ventilator at 5 p.m. Monday, but two hours before the deadline gave the family another week to find a place to move her. 
 
 Straus filed papers Monday in both the state appeals court and in a federal court where Jahi's mother also has sued. He is opposing the family's request for an emergency order to keep Jahi on a ventilator indefinitely. 
 
 "The Superior Court correctly concluded, after three days of hearings and based on uncontroverted evidence, that Ms. McMath is, sadly, deceased," the papers state. "Turning off a ventilator that assists in delivery of oxygen of a dead person causes no irreparable harm — regardless of the parental or religious beliefs of the decedent's family." 
 
 The federal court has said it does not plan to act on the request until the case has worked its way through the state courts. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Leff reported from San Francisco. Associated Press writer Channing Joseph in San Francisco contributed to this report.
– It's been two years since Jahi McMath's tonsil surgery went wrong, she suffered brain death, and was declared dead, and now her family wants that death certificate revoked for the now-15-year-old who remains on life support. Jahi's mom, Nailah Winkfield, is suing in federal court various entities that include the state of California to have her daughter declared legally alive, reports Courthouse News Service. She "wishes to have her daughter's basic human right, to life, restored to her so that she can return to California" from New Jersey. Jahi is currently under care in the latter state, which allows a religious exemption to rulings about brain death, notes CBS News. "I want her to have the same rights as any other disabled kid," says Winkfield, per the AP. Should Jahi leave New Jersey without such a declaration, per the suit, "she could be refused treatment, unplugged, even shot, without repercussion as she is legally dead in California." Getting the death certificate overturned would allow the family to move Jahi back to Oakland and have insurers cover her medical bills, the family attorney tells AP. Winkfield says in her lawsuit that Jahi shows signs of life, including what she calls "uncontroverted and overwhelming" evidence of brain function, and has begun to menstruate. A California state judge earlier this year upheld the death certificate; her family's lawsuit against the hospital that performed the tonsillectomy brutally detailed the surgery gone wrong.