Jahi McMath, the 13-year-old girl who became brain dead after going into tonsillectomy surgery was given a court order requiring doctors to keep her alive and breathing through a machine for another week, Reuters reported.
It was not clear which court ordered the ruling but court documents posted electronically shows a filed suit in the United States District Court of northern California to keep McMath on life support since she became brain dead on Dec. 12, three days after going in for a tonsil surgery, Reuters reported.
With the new court ruling doctors at the Children's Hospital in Oakland are prohibited from removing McMath off of life support without the consent of her family until Jan. 7, according to Reuters.
"This is a tragedy that has been postponed for another week," a hospital spokesman told Reuters after the court announced the ruling.
The last extension ended on Monday when an Alameda County Superior Court judge set the deadline for McMath's removal from the ventilator after unaffiliated hospital doctors announced her as brain dead, Reuters reported.
The suit filed by the McMath family states the "removal of cardiopulmonary support over the objections" of McMath's parents and religious beliefs is an infringement of religious freedom and privacy rights under the U.S. Constitution, according to Reuters.
The family want to move McMath to a long-term treatment facility where they believe she can be properly helped, Reuters reported. About $20,000 has already been raised to pay for her cross-country air lift.
Sandra Chatman, Jahi's grandmother and a registered nurse, said McMath had started to move her legs and seemed to be responding to voices in the room, Reuters reported. McMath' uncle, Omar Sealy, backed the claim that McMath was responding to voices and said he video taped the incident.
"We have a pediatrician who has seen Jahi who has sworn that she is not dead," Sealey told reporters, according to Reuters.
Though the family said it will not deter McMath from being moved to another facility, they will not perform any procedures needed before McMath is moved, like a tracheotomy and implanting gastric tubes in her body, Reuters reported.
Medical experts have contested the only thing keeping McMath alive is the air being forced in and out of her body by the ventilator, without which she would die, according to Reuters. Experts explain further that a brain dead state is different than a coma or vegetative state in that there is not brain activity at all in McMath's brain.
According to a Children's Hospital spokesperson it is "wrong and cruel for anyone to suggest that Jahi McMath is alive." adding "the sad truth is that nothing could bring her back," Reuters reported.
