Though Willis spent several weeks recovering in the ICU, doctors were “never able to determine what, exactly, caused her to stop breathing,” her family’s attorney James A. Morris said in a court declaration filed earlier this year.
According to Morris, Willis now “cannot move her body” and lives with an “anoxic brain injury from which she will never recover.”
“She is effectively frozen,” Morris stated. “She does sometimes open her eyes, but her eyes do not always track movement in the room. She does sometimes grunt.”
In her lawsuit against Malibu Summit, Willis’ mom Cooper accused the facility of “neglect, abandonment, recklessness and negligence in failing to provide care and treatment,” saying that her daughter “suffered irreversible brain damage and permanent physical and mental incapacity, pain, suffering and emotional distress” as a result.