Eric Garner's Daughter Erica Declared Brain Dead With No Chance of Recovery After Massive Heart Attack

By Christina Carrega, Molly Crane Newman and Thomas Tracy, New York Daily News

28 December 17

 

octors have listed the daughter of police choke-hold victim Eric Garner as brain dead with no chance of recovery — five days after the mother of two suffered a massive heart attack, the Daily News has learned.

Family members rushed to Woodhull Hospital Thursday to say final goodbyes to Erica Garner, who became an outspoken critic of police brutality after her father’s death in 2013.

The 27-year-old firebrand remained on life support Thursday morning, her mother Esaw Snipes said.

“She’s not gone, she’s brain dead,” Garner’s heartbroken mother explained. “Physically she is still with us.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton also stopped by the hospital to pray with the family.

“We’re here with the family every day,” Sharpton said. “(Erica) was a warrior. She was a real activist, she was always involved. From three years ago, she never stopped. She was always at rallies, she was always calling me — 'Reverend, we'll do this. Reverend, we'll do that. We'll do it your way, then I'm gonna do it different than you.'

“It's just sad to see her laying there and not the active Erica that we know,” he said.

Garner has been in a coma since Saturday, when an asthma attack triggered a heart attack.

The person running her popular Twitter account told Garner’s 35,000 followers Wednesday that a CAT scan revealed that she had suffered brain damage “from lack of oxygen while in cardiac arrest.”

The account refuted a “rest in peace” message from Brooklyn city Councilman Jumanee Williams who prematurely reported her death.

"As we sent prayers up...so sorry to hear the news. RIP @es_snipes. That family still needs us #Garner," Williams tweeted.

In a later statement, the councilman said he “hastily tweeted out erroneous information.”

“I reacted immediately and emotionally to this unverified information, and in my desire to give heartfelt condolences to a family I know and have immense regard for, responded in public without confirming that information,” Williams said. “I apologize for any additional strain this may have put on a family who already knows heartbreak all too well and whose pain I cannot imagine right now.”

Eric Garner’s pleas of “I can’t breathe!” as he was put into a chokehold by Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo — a chokehold the NYPD had banned — helped spark the Black Lives Matter movement and spurred his daughter to become an advocate against police brutality.

When her son was born in August, she named her newborn after her fallen father.

She suffered her first heart attack shortly after the delivery, with doctors saying the pregnancy stressed her already enlarged heart.