Md. Baby's Body Mistakenly Cremated

After months of prayer, the Austins, along with relatives and friends, camped out in a hospital waiting room for more than eight hours as doctors disconnected Akilah from the heart pump and placed the human donor heart in her chest.

"We're just so thankful," Lisa Austin said in a previous interview. She had felt guilty for months as she hoped for a heart to save her child. "The hardest thing about this is knowing that somebody else's child died so that mine can live."

After the transplant, Akilah's new heart stabilized and began to pump as doctors had hoped. Doctors kept her sedated so she would not feel pain and also to keep her still while she healed. Lisa, who had quit her job months earlier and moved into a Ronald McDonald House near the hospital, she spent hours by her daughter's side. Relatives and friends kept a vigil in the waiting room.

Then the infections started, including fluid in the lungs. Akilah was placed on dialysis to help her kidney function. She contracted pneumonia and a blood infection. Her heart rate began to slow, and Vricella notified family members that they should prepare for the worst.

Just before midnight Sept. 10, surrounded by her parents, friends and relatives, Akilah died. After her death, the funeral arrangements gave loved ones something to focus on, Czechanski said.

Akilah loved pretty dresses, so they had to find the right one. The flowers had to be right. There needed to be music, perhaps Brahms's "Lullaby," which was playing when she drew her last breath.

Lisa found the perfect dress, white and pink, and long like what a princess would wear. They purchased pink bows for her hair and tiny white shoes. An aunt found white tights. An uncle bought a tiny angel to put in the coffin.

Relatives said they had chosen Fleck because they had been impressed with the funeral home's pitch. "He said they didn't profit off babies," Czechanski said. "We liked that, because it showed they were sensitive to babies."

They planned to bury Akilah in the Babyland section of Maryland National Cemetery, near the spot where officials plan to erect a statue of an angel. Everybody was looking forward to seeing her one last time -- to plant one more kiss on her chubby cheek and to touch her silky hair.

Now that will never happen. The funeral will be rescheduled, but the date has not been set.

Czechanski said a memorial tribute, an event that was once planned as a fundraiser for Akilah, is set for Oct. 1 at Clinton Cycles.

"Everybody has lost the chance for closure," Czechanski said, referring to the cremation. "It would have been our last memory. I wanted to kiss her goodbye. They took away the last chance we had to do that."

Despite the tragic end, Vricella said, Akilah's case offered hope for other children who could benefit from an artificial heart while awaiting transplant.

"She got seven more months with her family, and I think that the Berlin heart was a success, leading to a difficult transplant that unfortunately had a complicated course," he wrote in an e-mail.

"I know that another child at Johns Hopkins will someday benefit from her unfortunate story."