Erica Garner clings to life as her family holds out hope for brain damage recovery

The daughter of police chokehold victim Eric Garner is close to death but still showing her fighting spirit after a massive heart attack nearly a week ago, family members told the Daily News Thursday.

Relatives and friends rushed to Woodhull Hospital Thursday to visit Erica Garner, who became an outspoken
critic of police brutality after her father’s death in 2013.

The 27-year-old firebrand remained in grave condition on life support Thursday, her mother Esaw Snipes said.

“She’s not gone, she’s brain dead,” Garner’s heartbroken mother explained early Thursday. “Physically she is still with us.”

Later in the day, Snipes said her family was clinging to “a glimpse of hope.”

“We got the wrong information, she's not gone,” she said. “She's still here with us. She just needs some time to heal, that's it
"We just ask that y'all give her time to heal,” she said. “Keep praying for her."

Other visitors claimed Garner was showing a minimal amount of brain activity in her most recent scans.

“We are just praying for a miracle,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who also visited the hospital Thursday. “(Erica) was a warrior. She was a real activist, she was always involved. From three years ago, she never stopped. She was always at rallies, she was always calling me — 'Reverend, we'll do this. Reverend, we'll do that. We'll do it your way, then I'm gonna do it different than you.'

“It's just sad to see her laying there and not the active Erica that we know,” he said.

Garner has been in a coma since Saturday, when an asthma attack triggered a heart attack.

The person running her popular Twitter account told Garner’s 35,000 followers Wednesday that a CAT scan revealed that she had suffered brain damage “from lack of oxygen while in cardiac arrest.”

Eric Garner died after being put in a banned chokehold by Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo. (AP)
The account refuted a “rest in peace” message from Brooklyn city Councilman Jumaane Williams who prematurely reported her death.

"As we sent prayers up...so sorry to hear the news. RIP @es_snipes. That family still needs us #Garner," Williams tweeted.

In a later statement, the councilman said he “hastily tweeted out erroneous information.”

“I reacted immediately and emotionally to this unverified information, and in my desire to give heartfelt condolences to a family I know and have immense regard for, responded in public without confirming that information,” Williams said. “I apologize for any additional strain this may have put on a family who already knows heartbreak all too well and whose pain I cannot imagine right now.”

Eric Garner’s pleas of “I can’t breathe!” as he was put into a chokehold by Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo — a chokehold the NYPD had banned — helped spark the Black Lives Matter movement and spurred his daughter to become an advocate against police brutality.

When her son was born in August, she named her newborn after her fallen father.

She suffered her first heart attack shortly after the delivery, with doctors saying the pregnancy stressed her already enlarged heart.


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