Two-year-old Israel Stinson, hospitalized after a severe asthma attack, went on to suffer cardiac arrest and brain damage. When he was transferred to Kaiser Permanente in Sacramento, doctors wanted to remove life support, but his family and the Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF) fought against that.

Snyder

“That hospital for five weeks never fed Israel, so he was completely without nutrition for five weeks, so almost starved to death,” reports LLDF’s Alexandra Snyder. “This caused his blood pressure to become very erratic, and the hospital kept saying, ‘See? This is because of his brain injury,’ that because he’s brain dead he cannot regulate his blood pressure.”

The hospitals would not provide nutrition, saying it would cause catastrophic digestive problems. But after enduring a legal tug-of-war while seeking another hospital, the parents settled for flying Israel out of the country.

“As soon as he was at the other hospital in Central America, in really a third world country, he received those procedures, got the feeding tube, did very well, [and] had no problem with digestion whatsoever,” Snyder relays. “And as soon as he got regular nutrition, his blood pressure stabilized, and he did not need any blood pressure medication anymore.”

Baby Israel is now back in a U.S. hospital and is being prepared to leave for treatment at home. A Go Fund Me account has been set up to help the parents raise the money needed for home health equipment.