08x04 - Fatal Feud

[bunniefuu]

[eerie music]

[music playing]

NARRATOR A family drama turned into a nightmare.

DR. G This woman came to help her sister out

and then she's found dead.

NARRATOR And all signs point to m*rder.

The brother-in-law threatened this woman.

And the sisters were in the fear of their lives.

[interposing voices]

NARRATOR Then Dr. G is mystified by the sudden death

of a healthy teenager.

DR. G And the family is devastated.

They came here for a better life,

and now their daughter is dead.

NARRATOR But when the mystery deepens with every clue,

Dr. G begins to wonder if she'll ever find the answer.

I'm hoping this isn't a dead-end autopsy.

[opening theme music]

NARRATOR Altered lives, baffling medical mysteries,

shocking revelations--

these are the everyday cases of Dr. G, Medical Examiner.

[percussive music]

Ugh.

Well, it's a busy day today.

We have a lot of people.

We just don't know why they d*ed.

There's not a lot of obvious cases.

So there's a lot of thinking while I'm doing the case.

You know, sometimes death is anticipated,

and sometimes it's just a lightning bolt. You know,

none of these people thought they were

going to be autopsied today.

That's why we have to be really thankful for every day we have.

NARRATOR And when a life is cut short senselessly

by a possible homicide, the stakes are even higher

for Dr. G to solve the case.

[suspenseful music]

The story is that this woman traveled all the way

from Sydney, Australia to Orlando

because her sister was having problems with her marriage.

Her husband and her young son were

supposed to get here today.

And they're going to go and spend the week

at the theme parks and just enjoy the good weather here

in Orlando.

So she was really looking forward

to spending some time with her husband and young child.

NARRATOR But on the morning of their arrival,

Natalie fails to come down for breakfast.

Natalie?

NARRATOR Sandra goes upstairs to wake her sister.

SANDRA Natalie?

NARRATOR But when she opens the door to Natalie's room,

she's faced with a nightmare.

The sister walks in and finds her on the ground.

She's just found collapsed.

Natalie?

NARRATOR Terrified, Sandra frantically dials .

SANDRA No. No pulse.

[ambulance siren]

NARRATOR Paramedics arrive on the scene within minutes,

but it's too late.

Natalie is dead.

Dr. G's medical investigator is immediately

called to the scene.

When my investigator finds her,

she's face down in her bedroom.

It looks like she changed into her night clothes,

but the bed looks like it hadn't been slept in.

This is looking like whatever got her,

it happened very quickly.

NARRATOR The victim's sister, Sandra,

is beside herself with grief.

And when questioned about Natalie's final hours,

she reveals a shocking detail.

DR. G She told the police that last night,

her husband came over and was quite angry.

They're getting a divorce.

And he blames his wife's sister for their marriage dissolving.

Stop right now!

DR. G A big argument ensued and it was very heated.

And right before he left, he actually threatened this woman

and told her she better watch her back.

It was a warm summer night.

They actually slept with the windows open.

He certainly still is able to get in.

And then the next morning, the sister's found dead.

[shocking music]

So in the back of the living sister's mind,

she's really worried that the husband

came back in and did something to her sister during the night.

That's very disturbing because this is a violent man.

And people in divorce situations,

when marriages have dissolved, they do things that they

really wouldn't normally do.

And some terrible violent acts have

occurred in these situations.

[creepy music]

NARRATOR But police need more than just a hunch

to open a m*rder investigation.
[ … ]

They will need Dr. G to provide them with proof

that it was a homicide.

This is a woman that really has no reason to be dead.

She's only years old.

So we definitely have to investigate to make

sure there's no foul play here.

[creepy music]

Oh, boy.

It's a sad one.

Sometimes, just the timing of the death

makes some of these cases exceptionally cruel.

NARRATOR According to the investigator's report,

Natalie's husband and five-year-old son

were on their way from Australia to join

her on the day she d*ed.

They were actually going to come and visit

and stay for a week with her.

So we can't even tell her husband and son

that she had d*ed yet, because they're in route somewhere

over the ocean right now.

When you think of that little boy coming here to have fun,

that's very sad.

NARRATOR But Dr. G can't afford to let her feelings

get in the way of her work.

DR. G When you do a case like this,

you put all of the sadness and the emotion

aside because you have answers to get.

I don't know.

I didn't see where they prescribed anything.

I'm not cold.

I just have to get that out of my mind.

Because if you dwell on that, you're not going

to be able to do your job.

Oh, give me about three sterile blades and then a little

blue container with alcohol.

NARRATOR Although foul play is number one on Dr. G's list,

over two decades of performing autopsies tell her it's

far too soon to jump to conclusions.

DR. G We don't know really what her cause of death

is going to be.

Everything's on the table at this point.

There are so many possibilities on how she could have

d*ed but really so few clues.

According to the sister, she's has these recurrent sinus

headaches, and she was complaining

that she was having headaches prior to going to bed.

But many, many people have sinus headaches.

She did die suddenly and unexpectedly.

So maybe they weren't sinus headaches.

Maybe it's something more sinister.

Maybe it's a tumor.

Maybe it's an infection of her sinuses

that-- that has gotten out of control.

I don't know what's going on.

This is really going to be a mystery.

NARRATOR Sandra also reveals that Natalie apparently

suffered from heart palpitations.

Ooh.

Something's not sounding good.

All of a sudden, her heart would stop

but then it would start up again on its own.

Maybe there is some type of heart disease going on.

So I will really be focusing on her heart.

We have a lot of possibilities on this case.

We know she's having these sinus headaches.

And we've got history of some--

maybe some heart disease.

And we have the worry about foul play.

NARRATOR And if it is indeed a homicide,

police will be eager to get answers from Dr. G

before it's too late.

If I do find any evidence of foul play,

the detectives will need to apprehend the prime suspect.

But time is ticking, and this fellow may be, uh, fleeing

the country, for all I know.

So there's a lot hanging on this autopsy.

[suspenseful music]

[creepy music]

NARRATOR The body of -year-old Natalie Hagan, who

d*ed suddenly under suspicious circumstances,

has just arrived at the District Nine morgue.

DR. G Unfortunately, the husband and the son

don't even know she's dead yet.

The first thing they're going to want to know is what happened.

She has an argument with her sister's estranged husband

and then she's found dead.

What they're going to want to know is why she d*ed.

[dark music]

[percussive music]

When you see her, she's got her nightgown on.

She's got some curlers in her hair.

She looks like she d*ed suddenly.

NARRATOR Given that foul play is a likely culprit,

Dr. G, assisted by technician Tom Hemphill,

zeroes in on the neck and head on the lookout

for evidence of trauma.

I do palpate her scalp, and I don't really feel anything.

But that's not unusual in somebody with a full head

of hair like she has.

Yeah, there's nothing there.
[ … ]

I'd also check to make sure that the neck shows

no evidence of strangulation.

We'll do the neck and then after you take that off.

We'll see when we get in there.

I don't see a lot of trauma to her neck.

But sometimes, you won't see that, particularly

if they take let's a towel or something across your neck.

So she didn't have any external trauma that I can see,

but you can't always tell on the outside

and you need look on the inside.

The only other thing I noticed is

she had a little bit of froth coming out of her oral cavity.

And one of the things you worry about when you

see that is a drug overdose.

She's clearly upset over this episode

with her brother-in-law.

Maybe she's combining alcohol with anti-anxiety dr*gs,

or alcohol with some kind of pain medication.

You never know.

But toxicology may be the answer.

[music playing]

NARRATOR Dr. G continues to scan Natalie's body,

searching for any other clues that might

explain her untimely death.

But she looks like she's in good health.

Mm, all right.

This is looking like a true mystery.

And I love a mystery.

[dark music]

Let me open her up and see if I see anything.

NARRATOR Dr. G makes the standard Y incision

across Natalie's chest.

Her eyes peeled for any signs of fatal trauma.

DR. G I looked to see, is there any blood

that has gotten into the tissues,

into the muscles that would indicate like blows

that I may not see on the skin.

No rib fractures, at least.

She doesn't have any of that.

She doesn't have any rib fractures.

Really at first glance, nothing looks unusual.

But I am still suspicious of foul play.

NARRATOR Dr. G still needs to look inside the head and neck

for evidence of fatal injury.

But first, she draws samples of Natalie's

blood to send to toxicology.

DR. G Then the next thing I'm going to look at

is the heart because she's got kind of a wacky story

about her heart stopping and starting.

Maybe there is something wrong with her heart.

NARRATOR But as she inspects the organ more closely,

Dr. G is surprised to see it's in better shape

than she expected.

Her heart's not even that big.

All right.

Her heart is of normal size.

Doesn't look like she has long-term high blood pressure.

I look at the heart muscle itself.

There's certainly no abnormalities.

Unfortunately, all of her heart problems,

I don't see anything That's clearly

wasn't her cause of death.

Oh well, I gotta move on to something else now.

NARRATOR The thorough inspection

of Natalie's remaining organs reveals

nothing out of the ordinary.

We're at a by centimeter.

The [inaudible] looks beautiful .

Her spleen is of normal size.

Her kidneys looked OK.

And everything looks good.

Unfortunately, I don't see anything.

I'll [inaudible].

Now that I've taken all those organs out,

I can really dissect the neck, because I'm worried

that maybe he strangled her.

NARRATOR Dr. G is anxious to get a look at Natalie's hyoid,

a small bone in the neck.

If she was strangled to death, it's

possible that it was damaged.

DR. G That can be broken quite readily with strangulation.

But that hyoid bone was completely normal.

No indication, whatsoever that she was strangled.

I don't know.

I'm not sour grapes.

That is very disappointing.

All right.

I have no really good reason why she should be dead.

I ruled out strangulation to her neck.

I ruled out any kind of trauma to her chest and abdomen.

And I've ruled out most natural diseases that I can see.

But something going on in the brain is a possibility.

And there was a death thr*at against this woman right

before she was found dead.

So I'm still worried that there is some foul play involved.

Maybe a blow to the head from that angry brother-in-law

of hers.

[interposing voices]

NARRATOR And with Natalie's family due

to arrive in Orlando within hours, the pressure
[ … ]

to close this case is mounting.

OK, guys.

They don't even know she's dead yet.

I can't give them their mom back,

but I was really hoping to at least give them an answer

right away.

[intense music]

NARRATOR Dr. G carefully cuts a slit

across the back of Natalie's head from ear

to ear, reflecting the scalp.

I'm looking for a blow to the back of the head,

maybe from an assailant.

But I don't see anything there.

[clock ticking]

Now I'm worried.

Am I going to get a cause of death?

NARRATOR But in some cases, fatal trauma can only

be seen on the brain itself.

So we'll see what's on the inside.

Sir, you would open her head.

Go ahead.

NARRATOR Now, morgue technician,

Tom Hemphill, saws off the skull cap, exposing the brain.

And when Dr. G steps in to take a closer look,

she's stunned by what she sees.

Oh.

Something's around here.

I'm shocked.

There is something going on.

I may have just found her k*ller.

[dark music]

[music playing]

NARRATOR Dr. G has just made a shocking discovery

inside the brain of -year-old Natalie Hagan,

found dead on her bedroom floor after an argument

with her brother-in-law the night before.

What the heck is that?

I'm shocked.

She's got bleeding over the brain.

It was nasty.

The surviving sister said her husband was a violent man.

He's very angry and from thinking hmm,

he might have hit her on the head.

So I carefully removed the brain,

and I very carefully take a little water

and just try to kind of wash off some of that blood.

And lo and behold, I see why she d*ed.

This trumps everything.

NARRATOR Dr. G contacts the authorities

to share her discovery.

DR. G You know, the police can't

wait till I get the answer because there's

a lot hanging on this autopsy.

[suspenseful music]

NARRATOR On the last day of her life,

Natalie Hagan is feeling on top of the world.

DR. G She is so excited about her husband and son

coming over from Australia.

And they're going to spend the week here in Orlando

and go to all the theme parks and have fun.

NARRATOR But her excitement is abruptly

cut short by a disturbing visit from her brother-in-law.

DR. G He actually ends up threatening her

because he blames her for ruining

the marriage with her sister.

They were in fear of their lives.

He was getting so angry.

(THREATENING) You may watch your back.

NATALIE OK. Get out!

DR. G He leaves, and she gets ready for bed.

And she was complaining that her sinus headaches

were coming back.

She's taking a lot of aspirin.

She puts her nightgown on.

She puts her few curlers in her hair,

but she's still really shaken by it.

NARRATOR But unbeknownst to anyone,

there is something terribly wrong

deep inside Natalie's brain.

DR. G She's a walking time b*mb because she has this weakened

wall of a blood vessel.

NARRATOR Over time, this weakened wall causes the vessel

to bulge or balloon out.

This is commonly referred to as a "berry aneurysm".

DR. G We really don't know what causes it.

We don't know why some people have them

and some people don't, but it's not uncommon.

At least % of the population will have

some type of little aneurysm.

Is that what she was feeling with those sinus headaches?

I doubt it.

Many, many people have sinus headaches.

Usually, it's associated with allergies and irritants.

I think those were a red herring.

I don't think that had anything to do with the aneurysm.

She probably had that weakness in the wall for years.

But she probably didn't develop that aneurysm

until she was in adulthood.

Unfortunately, over time, they can

get bigger and bigger to the point where they can burst.
[ … ]

But not that many people actually have

them burst and die from them.

NARRATOR Unfortunately, Natalie is one of those unlucky few.

DR. G She's just had this argument

with her brother-in-law and although he didn't k*ll her,

because he really never did lay a hand on her,

ultimately, in a way, it was a straw

that broke the camel's back.

That is her reaction to what he's

saying to her that k*lled her.

That stress is causing her blood pressure

to be higher than normal.

NARRATOR And this sets into motion

a deadly chain of events.

That blood vessel, which had weakened over years,

finally can't take the stress of this elevated blood pressure

and bursts open.

[bursts]

And the blood just starts rushing out.

NARRATOR As the blood builds up inside her brain,

it places unbearable pressure on the organ.

And causes her to lose consciousness immediately.

And then she starts developing a slight amount of fluid

in her lungs.

NARRATOR This fluid is then expelled from the lungs

into the mouth, which explains the froth Dr. G

found during the external exam.

And within the space of a few minutes, Natalie dies.

[emotional music]

Oh, boy.

It looks about the time when her husband and her son

are just getting off the plane.

This happened so suddenly and unexpectedly.

It's just going to be hard for them to believe.

That's cruel for the husband, but it's twice

as cruel for the son who expects to be here with his mom

and have fun.

NARRATOR Natalie's sister, Sandra,

takes comfort in the knowledge that she wasn't m*rder*d.

But she's shattered by the loss and will now

go through the divorce alone.

However, Natalie's death also serves

as an important reminder of the unpredictability of life.

We really don't know when our time is.

We don't know what's going on inside.

And you really need to appreciate

every day for what it is.

And it just makes you want to appreciate life

and appreciate what you have.

[dark music]

NARRATOR As a medical examiner, Dr. G

copes with tragic, untimely death every day.

But some cases feel particularly unjust.

DR. G This girl, who's only years old, supposedly

perfectly healthy girl.

She plays soccer.

And then dies rather suddenly and unexpectedly after about

three days of not feeling well.

It was just a really sad experience for the family

as oftentimes, my cases are.

NARRATOR Now, Dr. G must help the grieving family find out

why their loved one d*ed so young.

It's devastating to them, and they really

want to know what happened.

The answers are going to lie in the autopsy.

[suspenseful music]

[lively music]

DR. G The case today is of a -year-old girl.

She's from Nigeria, and she's only been in the country

for about a year.

She immigrated here with her family.

NARRATOR For Eugenie Ademola, life in St. Cloud,

Florida is off to a promising start.

She is making friends on the local soccer team

and plans to begin college in the fall.

DR. G She's loving life in the United States.

She's on a soccer team.

She's got a job over the summer working as a store clerk.

And then all of a sudden, she gets what they think is a flu.

[coughs]

DR. G And for about four days, she's not feeling well,

thinking it's going to pass.

NARRATOR Instead, it only gets worse.

Eugenie starts to experience chest pain and begins vomiting.

Her mother is worried and insists that she see a doctor.

She goes to one of those walking clinics.

And they give her anti-nausea medicine, Promethazine,

to keep her from vomiting.

And then that evening, she's vomiting some more

and feeling horrible.

Eugenie, you OK?

NARRATOR Later that night, her younger brother,

Lewis, goes to check on her and is met with a terrifying sight.

[suspenseful music]

The brother walks in to see how she's feeling,

and he finds her collapsed on the floor.

Eugenie!

NARRATOR Eugenie is barely conscious.

Her eyes are rolling to the back of her head,

and she's gasping for breath.
[ … ]

Eugenie.

Mom!

Mom, come in here--

The mom went in there to help her

and noticed she had vomited up some kind of blackish material

that really looks almost bloody.

NARRATOR Lewis calls .

And the paramedics raced to the home

and do all they can to save her.

They're trying to resuscitate her,

but she's never able to recover.

[emotional music]

I mean, the family is devastated.

They came here for a better life and now their daughter is dead."], index ,…}

[intense music]

NARRATOR Now, it's up to Dr. G to find out

what took this young girl's life too soon.

DR. G You feel sorry for the family.

They have no idea why she could have d*ed.

I want to know what's happening to her.

[dark music]

[music playing]

We got the rest of it

NARRATOR Dr. G is determined to cr*ck the case of Eugenie

Ademola, a healthy -year-old girl whose brother watched

her die just hours ago.

This case, right from the start,

is probably going to be a medical mystery.

I don't know why she d*ed.

The autopsy is going to be key.

NARRATOR Dr. G starts by scouring

the medical investigator's report for any clue

to the girl's k*ller.

DR. G She's .

You know, -year-olds do really stupid things.

We see people of this age group in the morgue a lot.

We see drug overdoses.

She have some friends and buddies on that soccer team

that'll give her something.

[suspenseful music]

I hope it wasn't of drug overdose.

NARRATOR But as Dr. G continues to read Eugenie's history,

another possibility jumps to the top of her list of suspects--

a deadly disease that strikes college age kids

and begins with flu-like symptoms.

One of the things you worry about is meningitis.

That would be a bacterial infection of the meninges-- the

covering over the brain.

That can cause you to die very quickly.

But then, you have that whole other dimension.

Could she be dying from some illness from Africa?

Or maybe it's something she wasn't vaccinated

against that she got here, like a fulminant chicken pox,

or measles, or, uh, hepatitis.

It's wide open at this point.

All right.

We need to figure out what it is we're going to [inaudible]..

OK. So we have--

The mom noticed she had vomited up in what

looked like some bloody fluid.

Maybe something happened in her GI tract.

You really start wondering about an ulcer

or a erosion of the lining of the stomach

is that what got her.

We don't know what she's got.

We just have this really short history

that she's completely well and then she gets sick and dies.

The list of things that could have k*lled this poor girl

is very long until we narrow it down.

And I don't know until I look at her and do the autopsy.

And then we'll put the pieces of the puzzle together.

[dark music]

It's a Sunday and this one's only a young kid.

Overall, when you look at her, she looks good.

She's a muscular girl.

She's a young girl.

She doesn't look that ill to me.

[inaudible] blood in this.

When I looked into her oral cavity and inside her nose,

she does have some blackish fluid that looks like it's

a little bit of blood.

I'm worried about that.

NARRATOR Next, Dr. G scans the body for signs

of infectious disease.

I think I do. I put a mark here.

Wait a minute.

Where did I put the mark?

I'm looking for lesions of chicken pox.

I'm looking for measles.

I'm looking for a rash that could

occur with a meningococcal meningitis.

But because of her skin color, uh, some of those rashes

may be a little harder for me to see.

[inaudible]

I was hoping that the external would give us a more

specific hint of the infection.

And I don't really see any of that.

Oh my god.

[inaudible] I don't see any signs of drug use on her,

but nowadays, the number one drug that people abuse
[ … ]

is going to be prescription medication,

and we don't see that externally.

And I think I'll wait to see what the rest of her autopsy

shows.

Although what I'm most worried about

is a meningitis or an infection, I'm always looking for trauma.

Could she have collapsed and hit her head

and then ultimately be what caused her death.

But I didn't see any.

There is no evidence of a scalp contusion.

There were no skull fractures.

NARRATOR Dr. G then peels back the scalp.

And technician John Gill Martin cuts open the skull.

[saw engine]

DR. G I removed the skull cap and get

our first look at the brain.

If she does have a bacterial meningitis, oftentimes,

we'll see it as a clouding.

Let's see if I could see anything.

Her brain-- the covering of her brain

showed no evidence of, uh, infection.

So I've pretty much ruled out meningitis visually,

but I need to wait for the cultures.

And I will take a piece and look under the microscope.

Because occasionally, you may not pick it up with your eyes.

Oh well.

I gotta move on to something else now.

I'm going to turn my attention now to the rest of her body

because I really don't think the answer is in the brain.

[dark music]

[suspenseful music]

NARRATOR Dr. G opens the body with a Y incision.

And at first glance, she's taken aback.

Oh my gosh.

It's not looking good.

What really strikes me is that she's got

a lot of enlarged lymph nodes.

Lymph nodes are collections of white cells

that form in the body.

And we see them all over.

That's part of your immune system.

The tissues aren't right.

I'm like either it's gotta be something going

on that we don't know about.

And it's something a little more serious.

[dark music]

NARRATOR Dr. G has just opened the body

of -year-old Eugenie Ademola and is

shocked by what she sees.

Wow.

Look at that.

There's something going on right there.

She's got enlarged lymph nodes and a lot of them and very big.

Some of them about is inch and /.

NARRATOR The lymph nodes are small glands

throughout the body that are an integral part

of the immune system whose purpose is to fight infection.

That's part of your immune system.

But they get very enlarged if they're being revved up

and an infection would tend to rev it up

or possibly even a cancer.

So I'm worried that maybe there is a cancer that's taken over.

Maybe a lymphoma or a tumor of the lymph system.

I certainly need to take some of those lymph nodes

and look under the microscope and see what's going on.

NARRATOR But it will be days before the microbes

come back from the lab, and the autopsy is far from over.

DR. G You have to keep an open mind when you do an autopsy.

You rule out this and you rule at that.

And you prove it's not that.

And you prove it's not that until you can find something.

NARRATOR Dr. G now draws blood and fluid for toxicology.

We got the blood.

You need anything else?

You always gotta do that tox because that's sometimes

surprisingly has the answer.

You know, did she take anything that may have caused her death?

You never know until you test it.

Look, it's coming through here.

Look at that.

For one point I was thinking, could she have d*ed from just

bleeding into her GI tract?

But lo and behold, she's not bleeding

at all in her GI tract.

She has no blood in her stomach and no evidence

of any kind of irritation or ulcer a to her GI tract.

So whatever is causing this black stuff to come out,

it's not coming out of her GI track.

[saw engine]

NARRATOR Dr. G then moves on to the liver and spleen.

The liver is normal, but the spleen--

an organ that is part of the immune system

and helps fight infection-- is not.

Her spleen is firm and slightly enlarged.

At this point, I'm worried that she does have

some type of infectious process going on,

but I haven't even ruled out a cancer yet,

a particular lymphoma because of all those big lymph nodes.

NARRATOR Next, Dr. G examines the heart.

Maybe she's got a viral infection
[ … ]

inside the muscle of the heart.

And that can cause a sudden death.

NARRATOR Dr. G takes out Eugenie's heart, weighs it,

and examines the muscle and arteries.

She got very nice coronary arteries.

Her heart is completely normal.

No evidence kind of general abnormalities.

NARRATOR As each lead slips through her fingers,

Dr. G wonders if she'll ever find an answer.

She now pins her hopes on finding a clue in the lungs.

It doesn't look great.

Yeah.

Her lungs looked really bad.

She has a lot of hemorrhage and a lot of fluid in the lungs.

I don't know how she's breathing at all.

I don't know what's going on.

They didn't show what I would say is classic pneumonia.

In a typical pneumonia, we'd see kind of a lumpy, bumpy pattern

because the white cells fill up the air spaces.

I don't feel that.

Oh gosh.

I don't-- But the lungs definitely don't look right.

And I can't explain it.

I'm not going to be able to tell until I

look under the microscope.

When I finish the autopsy, the main thing

I really need to look at is what's

going on in those lymph nodes and what's

going on in those lungs.

So I'm really eager to get those slides back.

[music playing]

NARRATOR Two days after the autopsy,

the lab work is delivered to the morgue.

DR. G The first thing I'm going to look

for is those microscopics of her lymph nodes.

Let's see if we could see anything.

[suspenseful music]

I look at the lymph nodes, and there's

no evidence of a lymphoma.

So I've ruled out cancer of the lymphocytes.

But they look more just that they

were enlarged and stimulated.

That's why I'm thinking, boy, she

probably does have some infection going on those lungs.

NARRATOR Dr. G immediately checks the cultures

and discovers she is right.

DR. G It's clear she's got a very

virulent or aggressive staph aureus bacterial infection.

But staph infection is actually causing

death to the tissues in her lung, incompatible with life.

Certainly, that's why she d*ed.

But what doesn't make sense is why

would somebody so young you think, perfectly healthy,

die from this?

NARRATOR Then Dr. G combs through all the lab results.

And there in one single test, she finally finds the answer.

I am shocked.

This was unexpected, totally unexpected.

[intense music]

[dark music]

NARRATOR Dr. G has just discovered

that Eugenie Ademola d*ed from a massive staph infection

in the lungs.

DR. G But it's hard to wrap around the fact

that this girl, that's so healthy,

a soccer player of one week and dead the next,

know why she has this virulent staph aureus infection.

And then I got another shock.

NARRATOR Finally, the result of one test in the lab report

gives her the astonishing answer.

When I was looking through all of her labs, at the end,

I noticed that the test for HIV--

human immunodeficiency virus-- was positive.

Oh my.

That was lightning out of the blue.

She's a young, healthy girl.

And we really didn't think that was the possibility.

But you know, her HIV surprised us.

She didn't give us any warning signs that she would have HIV.

She certainly didn't have any history of sharing

needles or being a drug user.

NARRATOR Finally, Dr. G knows exactly what happened.

DR. G I have her cause of death.

I finally put it together with that last clue.

[suspenseful music]

NARRATOR Just one week before her death, Eugenie

is playing soccer and working to save for college.

She's feeling good.

There's nothing bothering her.

And then all of a sudden, she's not feeling well.

She's really starting to feel bad.

NARRATOR Eugenie takes over-the-counter

cold medication, but it doesn't help.

[coughs]

NARRATOR Then fate delivers a brutal blow.

For whatever reason, she gets exposed

to a staph aureus, a bacteria.

That bacteria starts taking hold.

NARRATOR Staph bacteria are everywhere and are not

usually life threatening, especially
[ … ]

for an athletic teenage girl.

But what Eugenie doesn't know is that she's

also infected with human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV.

DR. G I don't know how she got HIV.

We didn't know anything about her sexual activity.

And she certainly didn't use needles.

NARRATOR The most likely explanation is that she

got it through sexual contact.

She's clearly just infected with the HIV virus.

Things are happening inside of her body

that she's not even aware of.

The virus is attacking lymphocytes.

It's causing her lymph nodes to grow,

trying to fight off the infection.

NARRATOR Her spleen is also enlarged, going into overdrive,

trying to combat HIV.

When her immune system is then invaded

by toxic staph bacteria, it is too weak to defend itself.

She got the double whammy in that

her immune system had already been

compromised with the HIV virus.

So it was even harder for her to fight

off this type of bacteria.

NARRATOR Within days, the bacteria latch onto her lungs,

causing a fatal infection.

DR. G When that bacteria starts taking hold in her lungs

is when she really starts getting sick.

Her body defenses can't keep that bacteria in check.

And once it starts growing, producing that toxin

in her lungs, it's taking over.

[coughs]

DR. G She has a rapid downhill course, more difficulty

breathing because she's getting more and more

necrosis or death to some of the tissue,

more hemorrhage in her lungs.

She's probably coughing up some of this blood,

swallowing it and vomiting it, which

is making her feel even worse.

NARRATOR By the time Eugenie's mother takes her

to the clinic , the staph infection

is on its way to k*lling her.

And unfortunately, she is misdiagnosed with a flu

and sent home with anti-nausea medication.

DR. G She could have d*ed just from the extent of the bleeding

inside of her lungs.

But that bacteria is also growing and reproducing

and eventually, gets into her bloodstream.

NARRATOR Once the infection enters her bloodstream,

Eugenie's weakened body is unable to fight anymore.

One by one, her organs shut down.

DR. G This cascade of events causes

her blood pressure to drop to the point

where she then just collapses.

And she ultimately dies.

[emotional music]

This was not what I expected she d*ed from.

Her family, obviously, is sad no matter why she d*ed.

They're particularly upset that she d*ed so quickly.

That's always hard to take.

And then we have to tell her on top that she had HIV infection.

NARRATOR Dr. G can't be sure if Eugenie contracted HIV

in Africa, where AIDS is a major epidemic,

or in the US, where an estimated , new cases of HIV

are diagnosed each year.

[emotional music]

DR. G I don't think she knew she had HIV infection.

Her family certainly didn't know.

We didn't have any record that we

could find that she'd ever been tested

here in the United States.

I do know that she would have been tested

prior to coming over here.

And if they had known at that time that she was infected,

they probably wouldn't have let her immigrate.

Because you, at this time, could not even

get into the United States with a positive HIV

unless she had some kind of special waiver.

So you know, it was just a really sad

experience for the family as oftentimes my cases are.

It's very slow, indolent infection.

And that's why we're trying to get everybody between and

in the United States tested because you

could be infected for a long, long time, not know it.

You can spread it to other people.

DR. G We need to start thinking not of HIV as a stigma,

but as a normal disease.

We need to routinely test for it and not think of it

as some kind of horrible thing.

Because nowadays, there's good treatment.

It's not the death sentence it used to be.

You can outlive the disease.

You can die from something else if you treat it well.

(SINGING) Come back to me.