Maya Kowalski was rushed to the ERat Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Fla., in the early morning of October 7, 2016. She had crippling stomach pain (“so severe, her knees were going up to her chest, and she was screaming,” says her father, Jack,) related to the rare neurological condition complex regional pain syndrome or CRPS.
The 17-year-old’s first memory was with her mom days later at the ICU. She kissed Maya on the forehead, told her she loved her, and they’d see each other the next day. “I never saw her again,” Maya says.
In this exclusive clip for People from the new Netflix documentaryTake Care of Maya(premiering this weekend at the Tribeca Film Festival and available to stream beginning June 19), Beata speaks with a parent advocate counseling her about how to get Maya back. The advocate says: “Beata, this is the thing you need to understand about these cases. They’re not fair. They don’t care about the evidence.”
In the ICU, Beata, trained as a registered nurse, told the doctors to administer a high dose of ketamine, the one treatment the Kowalskis and Maya’s doctor believed to be effective for her pain. The request raised concerns among the staff, and child protective services was called, which sent Dr. Sally Smith.
A court-ordered psychological evaluation eventually determined Beata did not have the illness. Still, Dr. Smith, a child abuse pediatrician who handled investigations for Pinellas County, a county with the highest rate in Florida of removing children from families under investigation, and the investigating team continued to push the case. “People on child protection teams try to make the best decisions for the safety of children. Sometimes parents have different perspectives,” Smith tells PEOPLE.
Less than a week after Maya checked into Johns Hopkins, she was placed in state custody and remained in the hospital away from her parents and her younger brother Kyle, now 16, for over three months.
Maya Kowalski in PEOPLE.Gesi Schilling
Gesi Schilling
A spokesperson from Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital would not comment directly on Maya’s case but shared a statement to PEOPLE that says in part: “Our first responsibility is always to the child brought to us for care, and we are legally obligated to notify the Department of Children and Families (DCF) when we detect a sign of possible abuse or neglect. It is DCF that investigates the situation and makes the ultimate decision about what course of action is in the best interest of the child.”
As a home infusion nurse, Beata knew to take detailed notes as evidence of her daughter’s symptoms and treatments beginning in 2015 when Maya was nine years old. “The only reason that we are able to bring this case [to trial] where every other attempt [of a similar case] in history has failed is because Beata documented everything and read everything,” says Greg Anderson, attorney for the Kowalski family.
“I watched the Kowalskis disintegrate and then try to move on without the linchpin – the wife and mother,” says Anderson. “Beata was a force of nature in taking care of her family. The depth of loss is beyond words.” Anderson has been their attorney for the past seven years and considers himself an extension of the family. Living with the heavy weight of pending litigation and hope for the upcoming trial has affected Anderson and his own family. “[My three kids] have literally not known what life is like without the Kowalski case,” he says.
Jack Kowalski
Maya’s memories are before and after her mother’s death, and she doesn’t have many reminders of her mom before she died. “I remember small things but not full stories,” Maya says. “She was always the type of person to try and make me feel better….she went the extra mile to make people smile.”
source: people.com
