On the finish of the fourth spherical in a six-round struggle on Aug. 28, 2021, Jeanette Zacarias Zapata went into convulsions.
A left uppercut and a proper hook from her opponent have been among the many string of punches that had turn into an excessive amount of to beat for the 18-year-old Mexican boxer.
Her coach, on-site paramedics and a health care provider assigned to the occasion rushed into the ring to help her as she lay unconscious at Montreal’s IGA stadium.
It was Zapata’s sixth — and final — skilled struggle. She died 5 days later at Sacré-Coeur-de-Montréal Hospital.
Her demise got here three and a half months after she had suffered a concussion in a knockout loss in her residence nation.
“This interview is actually troublesome for me,” Irene Zapata, the deceased boxer’s mom, informed Radio-Canada’s Enquête investigative staff, whereas sitting subsequent to her husband inside their residence in Aguascalientes, Mexico.
Holding again tears proved to be an almost unimaginable process.
“It has been actually troublesome with out her,” mentioned the grieving mom. “I misplaced my daughter, my buddy, my confidante.”
Through the interview, Enquête shared data it had uncovered about their daughter’s demise. It supplied the couple with their daughter’s radiology report that helped make sure the struggle in Montreal went forward.
It was a faux doc.
“I am traumatized,” mentioned the boxer’s father. “I am unable to consider it.”
Shortly after Jeanette was hospitalized in Montreal, Groupe Yvon Michel (GYM), a widely known boxing promoter that arrange that struggle, mentioned the boxer had undergone neurological exams on condition that she had been knocked out in her earlier struggle.
In 2023, a Quebec coroner dominated that the younger girl’s demise was unintended and should have been precipitated by Second Impression Syndrome (SIS). SIS happens when individuals expertise a second head harm earlier than totally recovering from the primary.
A deeper look reveals a number of extra layers to Jeanette’s demise that go effectively past the punches that have been landed through the bout.
A health care provider nobody is aware of
The Quebec liquor and gaming authority that sanctions prize fights, the Régie des alcools, des programs et des jeux (RACJ), claimed it discovered nothing out of the strange when it stamped that radiology report simply days earlier than the struggle.
However in accordance with a number of specialists Radio-Canada consulted, the report had an uncommon conclusion.
“The affected person is in good well being, which permits her to participate in excessive sports activities,” it reads, even if the boxer suffered a concussion in her earlier struggle in Could of that yr.
These sorts of studies do not usually weigh in on a affected person’s talents and as a substitute follow highlighting anomalies or accidents on a scan.
The doc was signed by a radiologist named Estela Jimenez Ochoa.
It had the letterhead of a clinic in Aguascalientes, the 18-year-old fighter’s hometown (the town can also be situated in a state that bears the identical title). However the date on the report — Aug. 15, 2021, just below two weeks earlier than the deadly boxing match — fell on a Sunday.
An internet search exhibits the clinic is all the time closed on Sundays. This was confirmed with each a cellphone name and a go to to the clinic shortly after arriving in Mexico on a Sunday.
When the Enquête staff returned to the clinic the next day, nobody current knew who Estela Jimenez Ochoa was.
So far as the pinnacle of the clinic was involved, the doc was faux — an opinion additionally shared by Dr. Anabel Cervantes, the president of the radiologists’ affiliation for the state of Aquascalientes.
“This physician, Estela Jimenez Ochoa, would not exist in our database, neither on the state or metropolis degree,” she mentioned.
The licence quantity on the backside of the doc? It seems it belonged to an accountant.
‘It price this younger girl her life’
The cast radiology doc isn’t the one purpose Jeanette was given the inexperienced mild to struggle in Montreal regardless of the concussion she suffered three months prior.
Dr. Juan Carlos Sanchez, the doctor for the Aguascalientes boxing fee, needed to fill out a compulsory questionnaire for the RACJ.
Previous to touchdown in Montreal, Jeanette consulted with Sanchez on at the least two events, Radio-Canada discovered.
On Could 18, 2021, simply 4 days after her brutal knockout loss in Mexico months previous to her demise, Jeanette met the boxing fee’s doctor with mind scans that had been taken at a hospital.
Enquête was in a position to receive the 2 units of scans after each fights — those Jeanette would’ve proven Sanchez throughout that go to, and those that have been accomplished at Sacré-Coeur-de-Montréal Hospital simply earlier than she died.
Every medical specialist consulted for this story agreed that the pictures captured on the hospital in Mexico in Could 2021 confirmed a closely broken mind.
Cervantes, the pinnacle of the radiologists’ affiliation in Aguascalientes, agreed and even went a step additional: Jeanette had no enterprise stepping foot in a hoop once more after her loss in Mexico.
Sanchez, nevertheless, merely informed the boxer to relaxation for a couple of weeks. He noticed her once more through the summer season, after she had acquired an invitation from the GYM promotion firm.
It was for a struggle towards Quebecer Marie-Pier Houle.
Round this time, Jeanette was nonetheless experiencing concussion signs, in accordance with her dad and mom.
“She already had intense ache. She complained loads about her head,” her mom Irene recalled.
However Sanchez made no point out of those signs within the RACJ questionnaire. There’s additionally no point out of the seriousness of her earlier accidents.
“It is an incomplete medical report,” mentioned Cervantes. “He omitted essential data and it price this younger girl her life.”
Sanchez had agreed to an interview for this story however backed out just some hours earlier than it was scheduled to happen. He then stopped answering all of Enquête‘s calls and messages.
Jeanette’s household wasn’t current through the appointments with Sanchez. She went there along with her coach.
“Consider me, had I noticed… that her mind had not totally recovered… I would not have let her go away,” Estaban Zacarias, Jeanette’s father, mentioned whereas wiping tears from his eyes.
“What a nightmare.”
Aguascalientes boxing fee defends Sanchez
Enquête met with Jeanette’s coach, Luis Cruz, and confirmed him the cast radiology report.
“I do not keep in mind. I’ve a tough time remembering,” he mentioned, however added that he particularly remembers that mind scans have been achieved, however it was in a special clinic than the one talked about on the doc.
He was additionally proven the RACJ questionnaire stuffed out by Dr. Sanchez that did not embody particulars about Jeanette’s harm historical past.
“I do not know why he did not put that in. He is a health care provider, not a charlatan,” Cruz mentioned, whereas emphasizing on a number of events through the interview that he himself had achieved nothing flawed.
Arturo Muñoz, the president of the Aguascalientes boxing fee, defended Sanchez.
“I am unable to inform you if the physician made a mistake. I do not know what occurred or why he did not embody that data,” he mentioned.
As for the cast radiology report, Muñoz mentioned he was stunned and that he had by no means seen or heard about it.
He was not the boxing fee’s president on the time of Jeanette’s demise. His predecessor, Christian Garduno, emphatically refused to talk with Enquête.
Jeanette’s mind scans in Quebec
Stéphane Ledoux would not like boxing, however the neurologist has watched footage of Jeanette’s closing struggle tons of of instances, in hopes of understanding what occurred.
“The photographs are continuously swirling in my head,” he mentioned. “That is an 18-year-old girl that had her complete life forward of her.”
He had begun his personal investigation into her demise. Missing assets, solutions and unable to acquire the scan carried out on Jeanette’s mind throughout her hospital keep in Quebec, Ledoux reached out to Enquête, and that is a giant purpose why this story got here collectively.
Along with her household’s approval, Enquête was in a position to get Jeanette’s mind scans from the Montreal hospital the place she died.
They confirmed the identical accidents because the scans in Mexico — however worse. In each circumstances, the proper aspect of the mind was broken, with appreciable irritation compressing the left aspect, the midline had deviated towards the left and there was bleeding within the house between the mind and the cranium on the proper.
“Primarily based on these photographs, we are able to say with none doubt that within the occasion of a big blow to the cranium, this individual was susceptible to critical neurological problems, together with demise,” mentioned Ledoux.
The neurologists all the time scoffed on the concept of Jeanette’s demise being unintended. Now, he says, there’s definitive proof.
“It was extraordinarily preventable,” he mentioned.
One other faux report — this time for one more boxer
Enquête shared its findings with the RACJ, Quebec’s liquor and gaming authority.
In an announcement, the provincial company expressed full shock.
“We’re floored by the knowledge that you’ve got dropped at our consideration,” wrote RACJ spokesperson Joyce Tremblay.
“In mild of the gravity of the state of affairs, we have now instantly began a verification of the medical paperwork.”
Giovanni Flores Martinez, one other Mexican boxer who fought throughout the identical occasion in Montreal, additionally had a radiological report signed by the identical fictional radiologist from Aguascalientes whose title seems on Jeanette’s.
The RACJ, which is a part of Quebec’s Public Safety Ministry, declined repeated requests for interviews. Public Safety Minister François Bonnardel additionally declined to be interviewed.
‘Completely irresponsible’
GYM, the Quebec boxing promoter, translated Jeanette’s radiology report and despatched it to the RACJ within the lead-up to the struggle in Montreal.
Yvon Michel, the president and founding father of the promotion firm that bears his title, says the correct process was adopted.
He was nonetheless satisfied that her demise was unintended — that’s, till Enquête revealed its findings to him throughout an interview.
“That is irresponsible, completely irresponsible,” Michel mentioned, reacting to the truth that Jeanette’s medical historical past was not included within the RACJ questionnaire.
Then, there’s the truth that the radiology report was faux.
“They cheated. They put her within the ring. It is felony what these individuals did,” mentioned Michel.
Questions stay about whose accountability it was to be sure that Jeanette was wholesome sufficient to struggle. So far as the RACJ is worried, it is as much as the promoter to ensure fighters are match to struggle.
“We’re going to ask organizers to be extra cautious in the case of the authenticity of submitted paperwork,” the liquor and gaming authority mentioned in an announcement.
Nevertheless, Michel says promoters assist international boxers get their paperwork to the RACJ, however it’s lower than them to authenticate them.
“Medical paperwork, we do not learn these. I am unable to consider if a boxer is in good well being,” he mentioned.
“I can consider their degree of expertise however I am unable to consider a doc that a health care provider stuffed out for a boxer. That is neither my competence nor my accountability.”
With information from Daphnée Hacker-B, Paloma Martinez Mendez, Benoit Michaud, Franciszek Czyzowicz and translated by CBC’s Antoni Nerestant
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