Teen dies after 2nd organ transplant

? Jesica Santillan, the teenager who survived a botched heart-lung transplant long enough to get an odds-shattering second set of donated organs, died Saturday, two days after the second transplant.

Doctors declared her brain dead at 1:25 p.m., said Duke University Medical Center spokesman Richard Puff.

She was kept on life support through the afternoon so family and friends could say goodbye, the hospital said in a statement. Medication to keep her heart going was discontinued at 5 p.m.; her heart stopped seven minutes later and a ventilator was then turned off.

Renee McCormick, a spokeswoman for a charity created to pay Jesica’s medical bills, said the Santillan family didn’t know until then that doctors were taking her off life support.

“They were hysterical,” McCormick said. “The family’s been treated so poorly. They’re very hurt. These are human beings.”

A family lawyer said earlier they didn’t want to remove Jesica from life support until an outside doctor verified she was brain dead.

Jesica, 17, whose own heart had a deformity that kept her lungs from getting oxygen into her blood, received a heart-lung transplant Feb. 7. But because of human error, the organs were of a different blood type, and her body rejected them.

She was near death by the time the second set was placed in her body early Thursday. By early Friday, the newest organs were performing well but Jesica’s brain was swelled and bleeding.