SARASOTA COUNTY, Fla. — The first set of witness testimonies in the "Take Care of Maya" lawsuit concluded on day two of the trial.
The Kowalski family of Venice is suing Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital for more than $200 million over the way staff treated them in the days after a visit to the emergency room in October 2016.
The family said not only did the hospital misdiagnose the then 10-year-old Maya Kowalski, but they falsely imprisoned and battered her. They also blamed the hospital for the death by suicide of mom Beata Kowalski in January 2017.
It was an emotional day for the family as their lawyers called up four witnesses including Maya's teenage brother Kyle and an uncle.
A close neighbor as well as Maya's former teacher from Taylor Ranch Elementary School also took the stand.
The Kowalskis' lawyers are trying to convince the jury that the conduct of the hospital's staff was extreme and outrageous. They said staff accused Maya's mother of Munchausen Syndrome-By-Proxy, claiming she had made up her daughter's illness and abused Maya by allegedly overmedicating her with ketamine.
A heartbreaking moment came when the lawyers played back the 911 call of when the family had discovered the mom deceased in the garage after she took her own life.
Jack Kowalski's voice: "I'm going to bring my son to my neighbors and call my neighbor."
911 Dispatcher: "Can you tell me the address there."
The audio played during the session with the second witness Robert Rynes, Jack Kowalski's younger brother, who also lived across the street from the family.
The family and some in the courtroom gallery became visibly emotional and grabbed tissues as the call played to the courtroom.
"Jack called me and said Beata just hung herself and you need to get over here right away," Rynes said.
"Did you rush over?" asked the lawyer.
"Yes. Immediately I told my wife, 'Beata hung herself, I'm going to Jack's,' and I took off across the street," Rynes responded.
Rynes also told the court about how he connected the family with a friend in Mexico to assist them after they had been referred to a doctor who could treat Maya with ketamine.
He also spoke about his brother's state after Maya was taken to the hospital.
"I've never seen fear on his face. For the first time, I saw my brother truly scared," Rynes said.
Kyle Kowalski's testimony followed after that. The teen described when he started noticing Maya getting sick, first with an odd-sounding cough, followed by other agonizing symptoms like severe pain, then frequent trips to the doctors, and when she started to lose mobility with her legs inverting. He also talked about her demeanor after they found a treatment that seemed to work.
"After Maya got back from Mexico, she gained a lot of her strength and along with that her happiness, and she was able to do stuff that she was never able to do before. For example, Maya, even unscrewing a water bottle cap will be very difficult for her, and after the trip from Mexico, she gained strength all over her body and was able to do stuff," Kyle Kowalski, Maya's brother and co-plaintiff, said.
"That is Maya. She is trying to build upper body strength, doing some exercises on the walker, and I am there to help her because it's still not exactly possible but she was very determined," Kyle said referring to a photo evidence exhibit.
At one point during the questioning, the lawyer asked Kyle if he thought it was possible that Maya was faking her illness and how she would react to seeing him and other children playing.
Kyle Kowalski: "I will be with my friends, doing something outside and then I could see her watching from the window."
Lawyer: And how does she look?
Kyle Kowalski: "She looked very sad and I felt extremely bad."
Lawyer: "She wanted to get out of that wheelchair?"
Kyle: "She was extremely determined."
Earlier in the day, a neighbor and family friend, the first witness called, set the stage for the early days of watching how Maya changed due to her health condition, Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome.
Brandon Woodward who lived not too far from the Kowalski family said he saw a healthy Maya during an annual July 4 bike parade held in the neighborhood on July 3. He said she was able to ride a bike and confirmed a photo shown in the courtroom of Maya riding a bike with her brother on his bike next to her.
But by the next year, July 3, 2016, he said she had deteriorated and was instead on a golf cart unable to ride a bike.
He also said that when he visited the family he saw Maya crawling around the house or using a wheelchair or crutches to get around and talked about the difference in her state between when she went to Mexico for a ketamine treatment versus when she returned from Johns Hopkins after her mother's death.
"When she first went and got the first treatment in Mexico and came back, like I said, in my personal opinion and not knowing any details of the treatment or what the disease was, I had the impression that it was one and done and she's better. Because she was getting better, so much quicker and getting her strength back and getting back to normal," Woodward said.
He also described the state of the family and the toll it took on them especially when the hospital sheltered Maya after she was placed in DCF custody which he witnessed during a New Year's Eve party.
"When the ball drops, usually you kiss your spouse or say Happy New Year and she lost it. She started crying and everybody was trying to console her," Woodward said of Beata Kowalksi.
He also spoke about Maya's condition after staying at All Children's Hospital and returning to the home after her mom had died.
"When she came back from the hospital, I can't tell you a set time, but I just remember it was such a long road for her to be able to do anything physically," Woodward said.
The last witness to take the stand was Maya's 4th- and 5th-grade teacher with the homebound program. Jackie Detert was among the few people outside of the hospital or DCF staff who were allowed to see Maya while she was in the custody of the department.
"Yes 100%. She just seemed stronger again. I wasn't going back in, tutoring her in her bedroom but she was still in the wheelchair. She kind of was glowing, Maya was glowing. She was that little girl that glowed," Detert said of Maya after her return from getting treatment in Mexico.
She described some of the interactions she had with hospital staff as well as ones she witnessed of them with Maya as cold and indifferent, including an incident about Maya's food choices.
"I then went through the menu with Maya and was trying to tell her, let's try to pick something else. I had the initial thought that she was eating a lot of carbs because she needed some weight so it was probably good that she was loading up on pasta, not that I am a nutritionist, and then she turned to me and got a little teary-eyed, and said 'I really miss my mom's cooking', and the nurses came in all the time and took vitals but they never said hello or introduced themselves to me, and didn't want to know who I was," she said.
Detert said she, by default of having access, became the go-between for the family when there was a no-contact order. She said she updated Beata frequently on Maya's condition but later began to keep them brief when she noticed how distressed the mom got at the news of deterioration in her daughter's condition.
For their part, lawyers for the hospital had opportunities to cross-examine the witnesses. They aimed to poke holes in the statements of the effectiveness of the ketamine treatment as observed and stated by the witnesses.
During opening statements Thursday, lead counsel for the hospital Howard Hunter said some of their evidence would show that the treatment, as administered by mom Beata, as well as a cocktail of other strong medication was dangerous and the hospital acted in the interest of the patient, Maya. Hunter said Beata Kowalski, who was a nurse by profession, was giving her daughter around 21 other drugs including 55 doses of ketamine before DCF took custody.
"Mrs. Kowaslki wanted an intrathecal pain pump placed in her daughter's spine to deliver a medication called clonidine, a powerful drug into her spinal canal, and she was told it was a bad idea by the doctors at All Children's...and indeed you are going to hear Dr. Kilpatrick tell her that's a bad idea," he said.
The Netflix documentary 'Take Care of Maya' detailed how the family said the hospital staff treated them between October 2016 and January 2017.
The case resumes on Tuesday with more testimonies and is expected to last two months.