Child actor dies aged 11 after suffering ‘multiple heart attacks’

A beloved child actor has tragically passed away after suffering multiple heart attacks, her mother has confirmed.

Millena Brandão, 11, fell ill last Wednesday with severe headaches and was rushed to Granjaú General Hospital in São Paulo, Brazil, where she died Friday. 

Brandão, who appeared in the Netflix series Sintonia, had 13 cardiac arrests between Wednesday and Thursday, according to her doctor.

Brandão’s cause of death was still unknown as of Monday.

‘The doctors still haven’t said what really happened to my daughter and what killed her,’ Brandão’s mother, Thays Brandão, told Brazilian news outlet G1. 

Millena Brandão experienced headaches, pain in her leg, drowsiness, loss of appetite and had fainted since April 24.

During that time she visited a city urgent care center and two São Paulo state-run hospitals. 

Doctors initially believed the young model had dengue fever before additional tests revealed a brain tumor. 

Brazilian child actor and model, Millena Brandão, died last Friday, nine days after she first fell ill

11-year-old Brazilian actress and model, Millena Brandão, went suffered 13 cardiac arrests between last Wednesday and Thursday before she died Friday

Millena Brandão made her acting debut in October 2023 on SBT [Brazilian Television System] and had appeared ‘A infância de Romeu e Julieta’ [Romeo and Juliet’s Childhood] and ‘A Caverna Encantada [The Enchanted Cave].

Thays Brandão, who also has a two-year-old daughter, questioned the care the doctors provided her daughter.

A physician at the state-run Pedreira General Hospital saw Millena Brandão on April 24 and treated her for a headache and told the grieving mother that the child had ‘dengue fever.’

‘But he didn’t do any tests. He told us to take her back home and give her dipyrone,’ Thays said. 

Millena Brandão cut short a modeling event April 26 due to pain in her leg and was taken to Pedreira General Hospital, but tests did not reveal any issues and she was told to rest at home, her mother said.

Thays Brandão (rear right) with her husband (rear left), two year-old daughter (front left) and 11-year-old daughter Millena Brandão (front right)

Millena Brandão made her acting debut in October 2023 on SBT [Brazilian Television System] 

The family planned on attending mass at a local church April 28, but returned home after Millena Brandão told her parents she was experiencing headaches, had no appetite and was drowsy.

Millena Brandão had dinner at home April 29 and then fainted in the bathroom. 

Her parents took her to Maria Antonieta Urgent Care Facility, where test came back negative for COVID-19,  H1N1 and dengue fever, but showed that she had ‘a urinary tract infection’ and was placed on medication.

‘She arrived with her unconscious in my husband’s arms. Then, she opened her eyes and regained consciousness,’ Thays Brandão recalled.

Staffers suggested she be transferred to a state-operated medical center in São Paulo, the state capital.

Thays Brandão complained that one of the nurses scolded a crying Millena Brandão, who pleased for help

‘She told her not to scream, that the pain wouldn’t go away like that,’ the mother said.

Millena Brandão began to feel sick April 24 when a doctor at Pedreira General Hospital treated her for a headache and said she had ‘dengue fever’ without doing any tests

 Doctors found a ‘5-centimeter mass’ Millena Brandão’s brain, her family revealed

Millena Brandão was taken to Granjaú General Hospital the morning of April 29 and was intubated after she had her first cardiac arrest.

‘Her lip turned purple. Then they resuscitated her and intubated her. From that day on, she never woke up again,’ Thays Brandão said.

She felt the hospital was not equipped with the correct staff to care for her daughter because they did not have a neurologist on site.

‘They only did a CT scan, and the doctors said they saw a 5-centimeter mass in her brain,’ she said. ‘But they don’t know if this mass was a tumor, a cyst, an edema, a clot … because they couldn’t open her head to see.’

Thays Brandão also wondered why the staff at Maria Antonieta Urgent Care Facility did not sent her instead to Hospital das Clínicas, where specialists are on hand.  

‘She got worse, with two to three cardiac arrests per day. She had 13 arrests in total. She had never had that before,’ she said. ‘There was one day when she had seven respiratory arrests. Sometimes they gave her massages and other times they gave her shocks [with a device called a defibrillator].’