Trigger warning: This article contains repeated mentions of suicide and death.
Maya Kowalski has taken the stand at the 'Take Care of Maya' trial against staff at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital.
In a case that shocked the country, Maya Kowalski has finally taken the stand five years after filing a $220 million lawsuit against Florida's Department of Children and Families (DCF), Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, and other key individuals.
Maya was only 10 years old when she was taken into state custody following a serious accusation against her parents which alleged that they had fabricated her symptoms of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS).
As a consequence of the separation, her mom, Beata, ended up taking her own life in 2017.
Hospital staff at the medical facility had allegedly videotaped Maya for 48 hours and stripped her down to her underwear for photographs without the proper permission. They also allegedly refused to let Maya's parents transfer her to another hospital which continued to exasperate other problems.
According to a video of the testimony posted by Fox 9, Maya took to the stand on Monday to emotionally recall an incident that took place in 2016.
"I remember that my mom was on this phone call and the person who she was speaking to...claimed that I never asked to speak to my mom. That I was doing fine. I was ok in my room. I hadn’t had any questions about why my parents weren’t allowed to see me," the teen said, as per the outlet.
"And that infuriated me so much because all I did for days on end was demand to speak to my parents," she continued, as tears streamed down her face in the clip. "That’s all I wanted to do, and I most certainly wasn’t just sitting in my room. I was crying."
In a statement to PEOPLE back in June, Maya’s father, Jack, said that his wife's condition "was deteriorating," after she was separated from her daughter who was "held captive" by the hospital. Jack added that it "destroyed" the mom-of-two when a judge denied her request to hug Maya.
When testifying last month, he recalled the details of watching his wife wither away the longer she was kept from Maya before the family's attorney Greg Anderson gave his statement.
He alleged the hospital's actions "caused [Beata], in the end, to lose completely and utterly her ability to control her maternal instinct, and the fact outweighed the survival instinct," as per Fox 13.
As a result, Anderson said, Maya and her brother Kyle were "denied" a "loving, caring, and amazing mother," he added, as Maya shed tears seated behind him, per the outlet.
It was later discovered that Beata had sent an email before her death saying: "I’m sorry but I no longer can take the pain being away from Maya and being treated like a criminal. I cannot watch my daughter suffer in pain and keep getting worse."
Earlier this week, Ethen Shapiro, an attorney representing the hospital asked whether the father knew of the risks of a surgery that Maya had undergone in Mexico, yet still put his daughter through it.
When asked on the stand if he was aware of the risk, it was reported that John responded with: "There is a risk in every procedure."
Shapiro hit back with: "I understand that, Mr. Kowalski, but respectfully there’s a risk and then there’s a risk that’s a coin flip in which your daughter could pass. Did you know it was 50%?"
The father replied: "They stated it was 50%, but they stated no one ever died from that procedure."
