Audrey Matura-Shepherd
Audrey Matura-Shepherd is also representing the family of twelve year old Sabrina Almendarez. She is the young girl who died mysteriously. Her family told News Five on Monday that they were suspicious of her death because following a tetanus injection administered at her school in Independence, Sabrina became gravely ill and on the twenty-ninth of November, she was found motionless in her bed—foaming from the mouth and bleeding from the nose. The family is now awaiting the results of an autopsy to determine the cause of death. The family was visited by Ministry of Health personnel and were contacted by the U.S. Embassy and their suspicions grew with Sabrina’s medical file went missing from the polyclinic. Matura-Shepherd says that the family wants closure and peace of mind.
Audrey Matura-Shepherd, Attorney for Almendarez Family
“The family does not know what caused the death of their daughter. They have never said publicly or privately that they can say that it is the shot that killed her. When they were interviewed by certain health personnel, they asked to give a tracing of what happened in the days before her death. And one of the things they recalled happened was that she did receive a vaccine for tetanus. We don’t know if that is the cause of death. As we speak, the postmortem is being conducted by Doctor Hugh Sanchez. The reason the family asked for Dr. Hugh Sanchez is because he is a pathologist, they want him to take specimens—he is an expert in that area. And at the end of the day, all the family really wants to know is what killed their child.”
Reporter
“I understand the family did consult with a medical person who said that one of the possible side effects of that tetanus vaccine is of course brain hemorrhaging and this child was found around four-thirty that morning bleeding from the nose and foaming at the mouth. Now those are signs that would indicate hemorrhaging. Could you add to that; that maybe that’s why they’ve come to that conclusion that it is possible that the tetanus shot could have caused the child’s death.”
Audrey Matura-Shepherd
“It is possible, but we want the experts to say it. You see, the family like myself, we are not medical experts, but that is a possibility. I mean you go on the internet, you talk to doctors and they tell you that maybe one in a million person would have that side effect. It is possible, we don’t know. What they want is to have an expert tell them on a paper in hand tell them that this is the cause of death and then they will proceed from there. But for now they are clamoring to find out the cause of death. The Almendarez family approached me because the child is a U.S. Citizen. The U.S. Embassy informed them that it is best that they hire an attorney. There were some logistical kinks to work out in the background. I won’t go into details other than to say that eventually everybody cooperated and they got what they really wanted at the end of the day is an autopsy. It had to be as quick as possible because the medical experts told us the longer the body stays in the morgue, the evidence is deteriorating—the body is decomposing; it is breaking down the evidence and they wanted a pathologist.”
Reporter
“Miss Audrey, can you speak to the fact that the child medical file has gone missing? Have you been alerted of this and if so what does this say to your case?”
Audrey Matura-Shepherd
“We don’t want to speculate, but as far as we known, indeed the file cannot be found at the polyclinic. I hope that through this medium, since you brought it up, we can plea to the authorities—if it was misplaced, someone else has it—please present the family with a copy. They have every right to know.”
Up to news time, the postmortem was still ongoing and we’ll be following up on this story.
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