North Jersey Mom Left Brain Damaged After C-Section, Family Piecing Together What Went Wrong

Estefania Mesa was cheerful and excited to deliver her first baby as she was wheeled in for an emergency C-section at Hoboken University Medical Center on July 20.

North Bergen's Estefenia Mesa was left brain damaged after she stopped breathing for nearly nine minutes in an emergency C-section in July. Her family is left piecing together what went wrong.
Photo Credit: *Courtesy of Eddie Argueta*

Mesa just before going into the operating room.
Photo Credit: *Courtesy of Eddie Argueta*

Mesa meets her daughter.
Photo Credit: *Courtesy of Eddie Argueta*

Cecilia Levine

12/20/2020 10:31 a.m.

But that joyful moment never came for 28-year-old Mesa, who went into cardiac arrest on the operating table, causing a severe lack of oxygen to her brain for nearly nine minutes, family and friends told Daily Voice.

The North Bergen mom has been in a vegetative state ever since, and her loved ones are struggling to understand where things went wrong.

Despite a court order to release medical records from Mesa's procedure, Hoboken University Medical Center has yet to do so, the New York Post reports.

“She didn’t collapse just anywhere," Mesa's boyfriend Eddie Argueta told The Post. "She stopped breathing in an operating room in the hospital with a medical team around her."

Family attorney Samuel Davis suspects medical negligence, and is investigating a possible lawsuit, the news outlet said.

Sunday, Dec. 20 marks five months since the incident -- and Mesa still can't walk, talk or hold her baby girl.

"It's been a nightmare," said the new mom's longtime friend Jennifer Romero, who launched a GoFundMe for her family. "I don't know how else to describe it. I wouldn't wish this upon my worst enemy."

Romero said things have been particularly difficult for Argueta, who has been raising baby Emma alone, and only returned to work as a waiter earlier this month.

"The love of his life is in the tragic thing, juggling being a new dad, and he still has to keep his life together," she said. "I can’t even imagine what he’s going through."

Romero tried to stay positive, noting Mesa was transferred to Kessler Rehabilitation Center last month, and is making steady but painfully slow progress.

But COVID-19 restrictions bar Mesa from having visitors, making things that much more difficult.

"The baby saw her once," Romero said. "We can't see her, we just FaceTime if the nurses let us.

"It's been really hard..." she trailed off. "It's really hard."

Romero is hopeful her friend will make a full recovery, but, she said, "It's definitely going to be a slow process."

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