Brain-Dead Girl Moved From Hospital

Acting with a court order, the family of a 13-year-old California girl declared brain dead after tonsil surgery has had her taken from a California hospital to be cared for elsewhere, the family's attorney says. Jahi McMath was moved by a critical care team while attached to a ventilator but without a feeding tube, and left Children's Hospital of Oakland in a private ambulance shortly before 8pm last night, the lawyer says.

The hospital's chief of pediatrics says the girl was released to the coroner, who then released her into the custody of her mother as per court order. The coroner's office has also issued a death certificate for the girl but the document is incomplete because no cause of death has been determined pending an autopsy. The family's lawyer asked for privacy for her caregivers, saying the case had aroused strong emotions across the country and "for Jahi's safety and for those around her, we will not be saying where she went or where she is." (More Jahi McMath stories.)