13-year-old dies after sinus infection spreads to his brain

A Michigan teen who was diagnosed with a sinus infection died weeks after doctors sent him home with instructions to let the virus “run its course,” according to his family.

Marquel Brumley, 13, received the diagnosis last month when he went to urgent care in Mt. Morris complaining of cold symptoms and a migraine, news station WHEM reported.

When his headaches didn’t improve, Brumley made several trips to the emergency room but medical experts didn’t have any answers for him, according to his family.

Suffering from yet another painful migraine, he returned again last week to the hospital and underwent an MRI which found his sinus infection spread to his brain.

Doctors determined that the infection created multiple blood clots, which caused two strokes.

Brumley underwent surgery at an Ann Arbor hospital to treat the infection, but he slipped into a coma from the blood clots.

“Unfortunately, it takes a long time to get blood clots to shrink and the blood clots were putting too much pressure on the brain and he couldn’t get proper oxygen to his brain,” his aunt Nicole Alexander told news station WJRT.

He died at the hospital about four weeks after his first visit to the doctor.

“He was my best friend. And now, I have to go on without him,” his sister, Alexandria Brumley, told WJRT.

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