BELO HORIZONTE, BRAZIL: A devastated father recalled the horror of allegedly witnessing his wife's doctor decapitate their baby daughter during a botched birth procedure. Victor Da Silva accused the surgeon of ripping the baby's head off while attempting to deliver the child. The family also accused the hospital of trying to cover its tracks by sewing up the dead girl's neck.
Mother Ranielly Coelho Santos, 34, launched a complaint against the Hospital das Clinicas da UFMG in Santa Efigenia two days after the death of her child on May 1. According to the family, Santos was 28 weeks pregnant when she sought treatment for high blood pressure at the hospital on April 24. About a week after she first arrived at the hospital, her doctor allegedly induced labor, leading to a seven-hour ordeal that ended in unspeakable trauma.
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Da Silva alleged that his wife's doctor instructed him to stand close by to observe his wife's childbirth. He recalled seeing his baby daughter, Emanuelly, blinking her eyes just moments before the physician allegedly decapitated her.
"By the time they pulled her, out she blinked, she was moving," he said, as quoted by Daily Mail. "Her little heart, before leaving, was beating." The embattled father said the doctors were pulling Emanuelly's head while instructing Santos to push. "But she had no more strength," Da Silva explained. "At the last moment they did that, a bunch of people came on top of her, held, held me. (They placed) general anesthesia on her, she fainted, the child left (died), she was already fainting." The family alleges the doctor climbed on Santos' body before they "ripped off the child's head."
The hospital reportedly apologized to the family for the incident and sent a social worker to meet with them. According to the family, the social worker made an offer on behalf of the hospital to cover the child's burial costs, if the family would sign documents that stated "the autopsy had already been performed at the hospital" and that "the child's body had already been examined."
The agreement meant "the body would not be forwarded to the Legal Medical Institute (IML)" for additional examination. However, Jennifer Valente, an attorney representing the family, said the family refused to sign the documents and instead filed a complaint with local law enforcement about the incident.
Santos accused the doctors of trying to cover their tracks by sewing up the girl's lacerated neck. "I was treated like an animal," the heartbroken mother reportedly told Brazilian news outlet R7. She said doctors also tried to stop her mother from uncovering Emanuelly's body before she discovered that her neck had been stitched up. "My mother saw the whole procedure. She opened the outfit, but they tried to stop my mother from opening the outfit, that's when we saw that her neck was sewn, full of marks," Santos added.
The hospital has since issued a statement addressing the incident. "The Hospital das Clínicas (HC) da UFMG, administered by the Empresa Brasileira de Serviços Hospitalares (EBSERH), deeply regrets the fact and sympathizes with the family at this time of mourning," the statement read. "HC and EBSERH are making every effort to for fact-finding and analysis of the case and support for the family." That said, the family has not yet been reunited with Emmanuelly's body. A funeral service was planned for when the remains are returned, per Radar Online.
