Forty year old father of three went to the ER with a headache and never came home

Christhian’s family is fighting for his life, surrounding his hospital bed, startled by the machines going off and providers rushing in, it’s been nothing short of a tragedy which has pulled the earth out from beneath us.

On June 22nd, 2025, Christhian was experiencing persistent headaches and sinus congestion. Christhian went to the emergency room at Adventist Hospital asking for help. Christhian was diagnosed with a sinus infection and migraine, and discharged to go home. Within a few days Christhian’s condition got worse. His headaches persisted and he had blurry vision.

On June 25th, 2025, Christhian was again brought to the emergency room, this time to Health One Aurora which is an Acute Care Hospital. The symptoms were explained to the medical staff and blood was drawn, similar to the previous facility, no imaging was done to rule out neurologic causes. The same day Christhian was discharged, his laboratory results were abnormal, specifically his white blood cell count. Christhian’s family was never informed about these abnormal results.

On June 26th, 2025, Christhian went back to the emergency room, for the third time to HCA. He had a seizure earlier that day and passed out at a later time. He does not have epilepsy or any kind of seizure disorder. Christhian got admitted directly to the intensive care unit, and that was the moment everything changed. Christhian was rushed for a CT scan of his head and brain. We were told shortly after that surgery may be required as there is a “mass” identified on imaging. That was the last time our family saw Christhian awake, alert and talking.

The next time we saw Christhian, he was unconscious, intubated and in a coma. How could this happen? Our family was pacing the room praying for some answers. We were met by a group of doctors who said; “I’m sorry, we found a tumor on his brain, we had to put him in a coma and the prognosis for recovery does not look good.” Our family was told that Christhian was placed in a medically induced coma – AFTER the fact! Nobody told us, we weren’t asked if we consented. At some point we were told it was a decision the staff had to make due to the emergent circumstances, to save his life. He never woke up.

The night of June 26th when Christhian got admitted and rushed to the ICU, the hospital team approached us and said that Christhian required an operation and draining of an infection in the brain, otherwise known as a brain abscess. This abscess was 4.4 cm! We didn’t understand, they had just told us that he wasn’t going to make it. We have a destroyed mother and three children trying to comprehend what’s happening, meanwhile doctors are playing a game of “operation” with our loved one, our cousin, our brother!

The physician told us that he “was not comfortable performing this procedure and would prefer that it be done with a surgeon with more experience in this area arrives, but that wouldn’t be until the following morning. Our family reluctantly agreed, but immediately began searching for hospitals what would accept him, who had the necessary equipment and specialists to complete a successful drainage of a brain abscess.

While our family, twenty people, at times more, were sitting in Christhian’s hospital room, praying that he wake up, we learned that the staff documented that it was US, the family who refused surgery the day prior. This is NOT TRUE. It was documented that Christhian may have contracted a parasitic infection due to traveling to Mexico in the last two weeks. This is NOT TRUE. Our family is from El Salvador and our cousin has NOT traveled to Mexico. When our family asked questions about these erroneous statements, the staff was quick to direct us to speak to another provider, that provider never came.

WE HAD ONE QUESTION; HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

Christhian came to the emergency room for help, entrusting his life in the medical providers. He had just been there 1 day earlier, presenting with the same symptoms, but he was sent home with no concerns! Where did things go wrong? Nobody is giving us any explanation. We finally learned that Christhian had an “infection in his brain” and that the hospital team was treating him with three different intravenous antibiotics. The surgery was an attempt to drain this abscess, which the doctors said “had not been drained entirely.” Abscesses exceeding the size of 2.5 cm have to be surgically drained and at times removed in conjunction with antibiotic therapy. Christhian continued to lay in a hospital bed, in a coma while being pumped full of antibiotics, showing no improvement.

Christhian was admitted on June 26th and he is still in the hospital today. The family is being approached by physicians and nurses multiple time a day asking if “they’ve changed their mind about the organ donation?” Our family was clear when this question was first posed at admission – we were NOT in agreement with organ donation nor was Christhian an organ donor.

Yesterday, July 3rd at 2:00 pm, Christhian’s family has been informed that after further testing, Christhian was officially declared brain dead. We pleaded to have some time to allow family the chance to say their goodbyes while Christhian’s heart was still beating. We were told that is it policy at HCA that family is given a couple of hours to say their goodbyes after a patient has officially been declared brain dead. We begged them to wait, we had family looking for flights. We explained that this was unexpected, that this death is untimely! We were told that Christhian would be disconnected from the ventilator at 10:00 pm, and by 8:00 pm we had to make our decision about whether or not Christhian’s organs can be harvested.

We were told that the facility is willing to keep Christhian on life support another couple of days in the interest of harvesting his organs, but would not allow the family an extra day to say goodbye if the organ donation was not agreed to. I felt like I got punched in the gut. Was is it due to Christhian’s lack of health insurance? Are his organs worth more than the closure his family may never get?

We asked if the hospital was going to perform an autopsy in light of this untimely and unexpected death and we were told that they were not, as they did not feel that it was necessary, since Christhian presented to emergency room “extremely sick.” The staff stated that if the family wishes to get an autopsy they will have to pay out of pocket with the cost starting at $3,500. We later learned that it ranges anywhere from $3,000 - $10,000.

After a long day of pleading and praying, we were allowed to keep Christhian connected to his ventilator until tomorrow. Our family can hear his heartbeat, hold his hand and start to grieve, even if it’s for one more day. We have hope in our hearts but we understand that we are losing our brother, our cousin, a father to three beautiful children, his wife’s protector. Christhian is a son. Parents should never have to bury their child, but they should get the chance to say goodbye if the unthinkable happens. And it did.

We are trying to raise money for an independent autopsy – since the hospital has denied our request to conduct one. They don’t seem to see the obvious problems, like the fact that they admitted that they weren’t comfortable operating yet they still proceeded to, or the fact that he was discharged home just a day prior to this coma from the same hospital. Why didn’t they do imaging? That could have saved Christhian’s life!

They didn’t do it because Christhian did not have health insurance. They were negligent in his care and diagnosis and his stay at that hospital was draining money, so it makes sense that the hospital continued to pressure the family into agreeing to organ donation – they had to make up for that loss, somehow.

We never thought this would happen to us, and it did. This is the American dream right? People come here for a better life, a safer life. We’ve learned that sometimes the places we are taught to believe are there to keep us safe, don’t. Every doctor takes a Hippocratic Oath, “Do no Harm.” So why didn’t Christhian get that same standard of care?

An autopsy will give the family answers we desperately need and hopefully deter Hospitals for choosing which patients to treat, and which to heal, based on who is a liability and who is an asset.