Girl Who Lost Limbs After a Case of Chickenpox Is Fitted With Artificial Arm

Jessica Lynn Esquivel, the 6-year-old Imperial Beach girl whose arms and legs were amputated after a routine case of chickenpox led to a secondary infection and then to toxic shock, has begun working with an artificial limb, officials at Children’s Hospital said Wednesday.

Mark Morelli, a spokesman for the hospital, described the device as a body-powered mechanical prosthetic, which in her case serves as a right arm. Her training is limited to about two hours a day, Morelli said.

“She took to it very nicely,” he said. “She picked up a pair of sunglasses and handed them to her mother, picked up a small pen and handed it to her father, and changed the channels on the television by using the remote control.”

Morelli said the next step will be to fit a pair of prosthetic leg devices, but that won’t occur for another two to three weeks. That endeavor is more complicated, he said, given that the leg is a weight-bearing limb. Dr. Harold Forney, a specialist in artificial limbs, is handling that part of the girl’s rehabilitation, Morelli said.

“It’s so nice to see her face, she’s so happy,” said Lisa Esquivel, Jessica’s mother. “She’s doing good, she used it real well. The man who made it for her was surprised she used it so well, so fast.

“It was only her second day, but she used her fork with it, and she seems excited. She kept saying, ‘Look, look, what I can do.’ I’m so happy, because she’s so happy. Lately, she’s been in a good mood, in really good spirits.”

Jessica, a kindergarten student at Oneonta Elementary School, entered the emergency room of the adjacent Sharp Memorial Hospital on April 1 with what doctors first believed was a routine case of chickenpox. Within hours, she had undergone full cardiac arrest, in addition to complete kidney, respiratory and liver failure.

They now say they expect her to have full liver, kidney and respiratory recovery, and, they say, she did not suffer brain damage.

They said a secondary infection, caused by a virulent strain of streptococcus bacteria, entered through one of the pox-caused lesions on her body. On April 18, in what doctors said was an effort to save her life, her arms were severed at the elbow and her legs at the kneecap. She has since undergone a number of minor surgeries to correct infections arising from the amputation.

“We have a long, long road ahead of us,” said Lisa Esquivel, 25. “I try not to think too much in the past. I try not to think too far ahead. She’s doing well today, and so I’m happy today. Tomorrow is just another day.

“Just now, she’s starting to be herself again. For a while after we got here, it would kind of make me sad sometimes--she would smile, but without the same sparkle she had before. But now, we’re seeing that again. She’s starting to laugh a little more, and it’s making us all feel a whole lot better.”

The Esquivels have hired an attorney, medical malpractice lawyer David D. Miller, who said recently that he and the family are considering legal action. The Esquivels have been quoted as saying that they were unhappy with medical treatment received at Scripps Memorial Hospital in Chula Vista, where Jessica was taken two nights before she incurred toxic shock, and with a pediatrician in Imperial Beach who sent her home without detecting the secondary infection.

Morelli, the spokesman for Children’s, said Jessica is out of pediatric intensive care but will remain in a private room indefinitely.