Between Life and Death

Yesterday morning’s training session at the Deva school was going without a hitch. Alexandra Huci was training alone in the pit because she wasn’t fully recovered from a wrist injury she suffered earlier. At one point, the 12-year old approached her coach, Liliana Cozma and asked permission to go to the restroom. She came back a few minutes later, saying she can’t practice anymore because she isn’t feeling well and she threw up. “We went to the doctor’s office right away, where school doctor Sanda Motea gave her a check-up, and later on she was sent to the hospital,” recalls coach Cozma.

Alexandra was taken to the Pediatric Hospital in Deva, and from there she ended up in the intensive care ward at the County Hospital. Dr. Sanda Motea claims the girl was still conscious when she left the school. “This could have natural causes. You never know. She was conscious when we put her in the ambulance.” This explanation is contradicted by Elena Bădau the nurse who was in the ambulance. “We got there at 12:05 and the girl was already in a coma. We asked if she fell and we were told she didn’t.” Bădau added she also performed CPR on the gymnast while she on the ambulance. The doctor who was on call in the ATI (intensive care) unit said the girl was already in a coma, but refused to release any other information and asked to remain anonymous. Over 3 hours had elapsed since the accident and the gymnast’s condition was getting worse. At 3:55 pm she was airlifted to Timisoara, along with Dr. Motea. ”The girl is in serious condition and she will be taken to the Neurosugery unit at Timisoara County Hospital for a CAT scan Unfortunately, we cannot let the parents know what happened. They live near Fălticeni and do not have a phone", said the doctor right after the landing. The helicopter got to Timisoara in 43 minutes.

The doctors from Timisoara who look after Alexandra ran several tests for almost 2 hours, but left the lab disappointed. ‘It’s an older congenital malformation that nobody knew about; it’s not a trauma. She came to us in a third degree coma, and the first diagnosis is suspicion of an arterrivenous malformation, with triventricle flooding. We know a blood vessel in her brain burst, but we cannot see the cause of the hemorrhage,” said on call neurosurgeon Dan Negoescu. Alexandra is kept alive by artificial life support, but chances of regaining consciousness are very small. [In Romania, comas are assigned degrees according to their seriousness, with 1st degree being the least serious and 4th degree being the one where the victim has the smallest chance of survival]

”We’re all affected by the little girl’s tragedy, even though she trains at the Deva school, not with the senior team,” said Mariana Bitang. She also said the girl couldn’t have been injured during training because she was only doing basic skills at practice, because she was protecting the stress fracture in her wrist suffered two months ago. “It’s exactly because she is still growing that she wasn’t forced to come back. We were trying to make sure she is completely healed. She’s one of the best junior gymnasts on the team and we kept an eye on her for our senior national team,” added Bitang about Huci, the national AA champion in the 3rd category (level 8).

Public health Director for Hunedoara County, Dr. Lucia Bulugeanu contradicts witnesses’ reports about the girl’s accident. “She probably had a congenital malformation, a brain aneurysm that broke as a result of cerebral trauma, meaning a fall or a hit in that area. This can also be the result of intense physical activity which can lead to high blood pressure and eventually breaks the ”bubble” in the blood vessel,” she explained. She also added that a person can live for years with a brain aneurysm, as long as that area is not exposed to any physical shock or high blood pressure.

ProSport published a picture of Alexandra as she was being taken to the hospital. I included a link to the picture, with the following disclaimer. I know there will be readers who find it disturbing, and I would strongly encourage any younger childern to ask their parents before seeing it.

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