Girl Sought After Mom Sneaks Her Out of Hospital

Authorities are looking for an 11-year-old girl with leukemia and a heart catheter who they say could die in a matter of days if she isn't brought back to the hospital from which her parents removed her last week. Authorities say the girl, Emily, had been receiving chemotherapy at Phoenix Children's Hospital for about a month. An infection forced doctors to amputate her right arm and insert a catheter in her heart. The device was set to be taken out before her mother removed an IV from the girl, changed her clothes, and walked her out of the hospital Wednesday night. Police said if the catheter is left in too long, it could lead to a deadly infection.

Authorities had been stymied by health privacy laws that kept them from releasing the parents' names, but police said yesterday that the US Border Patrol stopped the girl's father, Luis Bracamontes, 46, as he crossed into Arizona from Mexico over the weekend. Police say the man provided no clues to the girl's whereabouts and denied having any involvement in removing her from the hospital. They released his name, along with that of the girl's mother, Norma Bracamontes, 35, in hopes it will help locate the child. The family reportedly lives a "nomadic" life without a permanent residence. (More hospital stories.)