… or say a prayer or do something good to help someone in the merit of Ruhama Aliza Sara Chana bat Esther Liba, a little four-year-old Miami girl who fell into her family's pool, drowned and was resuscitated by paramedics. She's been in a vegetative state since then, on life support. Doctors say she is brain dead and want to disconnect her. The family is opposed to that. The family is looking for a facility to put her in but there appear to problems in arranging this.
You can read about the family's plight and see a local CBS News report here.
The family's attorney is Menachem Mayberg. (I think I was at part of his bar mitzva in Jerusalem in 1994. If so, and if you see this, please send my regards to your family for me.)
For those of you who find prayer and related efforts worthless, you could send a note of support to the Schwab family or post one in the comments below.
In any case, if a fund is set up to help the Schwab family care for Aliza, I'll post the information here.
I have friends who went through a similar crisis with a child.The family was convinced he was making progress and showing signs of regaining consciousness. Sadly, he did not recover. He remained in his vegetative state and died of sepsis about one year after his accident. While this is the normal outcome of situations like this, there are exceptions, and medical science is not yet skilled enough to predict those exceptions with any degree of accuracy. Let us hope and, for those of us who still do, pray that Ruhama Aliza Sara Chana is one of those exceptions, and that she makes a complete, full and speedy recovery.