Child star Millena Brandao dead at 11 after suffering 13 heart attacks
Brazilian child actress Millena Brandão died May 2 after suffering 13 heart attacks, multiple outlets report. She was 11.
Brandão had severe headaches, pain in her leg, drowsiness, loss of appetite and was constantly fainting when she was rushed to Granjau General Hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on April 30, per the Daily Mail.
According to the outlet, the pre-teen's doctor said she had multiple cardiac arrests between the day she arrived at the hospital and May 1.
She was pronounced dead one day later. Her official cause of death has yet to be determined.
The child's mother, Thays Brandão, told Brazilian news G1 on Monday that she still doesn't know what led to her daughter's death.
'The doctors still haven't said what really happened to my daughter and what killed her. It's a question mark,' she explained, noting that her daughter had 'two to three' cardiac arrests per day.
'She had 13 arrests in total. She had never had that before. There was one day when she had seven respiratory arrests. Sometimes they gave her massages and other times they gave her shocks [with a device called a defibrillator].'
The outlet reported that doctors initially thought Millena – who made her acting debut in October 2023 on SBT [Brazilian Television System] and had appeared in A infância de Romeu e Julieta, A Caverna Encantada and the Netflix production Sintonia – was suffering from dengue fever. However, that was later ruled out.
After tests, the doctors then identified that the young girl had a urinary tract infection. The health professionals also believe she had a suspected brain tumour, but that has not yet been confirmed.
Thays told G1 that as Millena did not wake up and her condition did not improve, she and her husband made the difficult but necessary decision given their daughter's irreversible condition.
'I said that if we were to let her little heart stop beating on its own, we would suffer more, and so would she. And we asked for the machines to be turned off,' she shared.
The Brazilian municipal and state health departments are reportedly investigating whether there was any irregularity in Millena's care.
Over the weekend, Thays penned an open letter to her late daughter on Instagram.
'The memories we spent together will remain in my memory and I will never forget your joy that spreads to everyone around you,' she captioned an image of Millena with angel wings and a gold halo.
'My girl, I miss you not having you here and I know I will miss you even more in the days to come! … And I will love you forever, and you will always be in my heart.'
She had garnered nearly 200,000 followers on Instagram.
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