A pre-existing brain abnormality — rather than any blow she received during an alleged school bullying incident — was responsible for the death of 12-year-old Khimberly Zavaleta, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner has concluded, classifying the manner of death as natural causes, according to NBC News.
On the official death certificate, the examiner entered "spontaneously ruptured cerebellar arteriovenous malformation" as the cause, referring to a congenital disorder in which abnormally structured, high-pressure blood vessels in the brain are highly susceptible to sudden rupture, according to NBC News. In a written statement, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Odey Ukpo explained that when an AVM ruptures, the resulting hemorrhage is immediate and can prove fatal within seconds to minutes, according to NBC News.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the family says that on Feb. 17 at Reseda Charter High School, Khimberly intervened when her older sister was being targeted by bullies and was hit in the head with a metal water bottle hurled by another student. Treated and discharged from a hospital on the same day, Khimberly appeared well enough to go home, but her condition deteriorated sharply over the following days; she was eventually transported to UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital, where surgeons operated on her brain and doctors placed her in a medically induced coma — measures that ultimately proved insufficient, as she died on Feb. 25, according to the Los Angeles Times.
