Family farewells brain dead daughter over internet
A family has said their final goodbyes over the internet to a young woman bashed by her husband 10,000 kilometres away.
Iranian woman Sanaz Nezami was left brain dead weeks after arriving in the US to start a new life, the New York Daily News reported.
The 27-year-old was planning to study advanced engineering at Michigan Technological University, but instead was allegedly attacked by her new husband in a remote part of the country.
The alleged vicious attack left Nezami's "brain so swollen and so damaged, there was no longer any blood flow," a nurse at the Marquette General Hospital said.
Despite being thousands of kilometres away, her family was able to say their farewells with the benefits of technology using Yahoo Messenger to host a video stream directly to the hospital.
The tragedy had a silver lining though: the family consented to their daughter's heart, lungs and other life-saving organs to be donated to save others.
All up, seven people were able to receive organs from the woman.
“We wanted God to perform a miracle and bring Sanaz back to life,” her sister, Sara Nezami, said.
“But this is a miracle. Sanaz gave her life in order to give life.”
UW-Organ and Tissue Donation's Wendy Mardak said the family was very clear about how they wanted their daughter portrayed.
"The family was very clear. They want Americans to know Sanaz loved America,'' she said
"It isn't something we've done in the past [the video stream]. It's not every day we're dealing with family members so far-flung,'' said Dave Edwards, spokesman for the hospital.
A nurse at the hospital, Kim Grutt, said that the family asked them to do things for their daughter that they couldn't do.
"They wanted us to do things for Sanaz that they would have done,'' Grutt said.
"They said, 'Let her know we love her. We're here.' I felt completely comfortable.''
"The family was willing to trust us to know she wasn't coming back.'
Just a few months earlier, Nezami had married Nima Nassiri and lived with him temporarily in Los Angeles.The two had met over the internet.
The pair began looking for rental accommodation in November in the Michigan area.
However, her sister became worried after Nezami sent across some unfinished Persian-to-English translation work she was doing on the side.
"I was shocked, Sara Nezami said. "Sanaz was a very precise girl, but she omitted some lines. I asked, 'Are you OK?' She told me there was no problem.
Nezami had travelled to the US with a dream of attaining a doctorate degree in environmental engineering.
