Lyndsey Sutherland can remember that one Christmas, several years ago, when her daughter tore open a package and began squealing in excitement — she got a cellphone.

On Wednesday, a jury in Cumberland County watched a video of the reveal and listened as Sutherland described her daughter’s competitive cheerleading competitions, the shopping trips they enjoyed and the deep conversations they used to share. Jasmine Vincent’s laughter on camera echoed in an otherwise silent courtroom, where jurors are weighing a wrongful death lawsuit her mother filed against a health center the teen visited four years ago, days before she died.

Testing after Vincent’s death showed she had a rare form of pediatric leukemia, which hadn’t been diagnosed before she died.

Sutherland is suing Mid Coast Medical Group, located in Brunswick and now part of MaineHealth, under the Maine Wrongful Death Act. Her lawyers say a gynecologist, Dr. Danielle Salhany, rushed to issue an unsound diagnosis without reviewing Vincent’s recent medical history or ordering an X-ray. Two experts for Sutherland testified on Tuesday that an X-ray could have helped reveal the cancer.

Salhany, who is not being sued herself, testified Tuesday that her role was limited as a specialist who only met with Vincent once. Sutherland had also sued Martin’s Point, a health care provider where Vincent received primary care, but she dropped them from the case ahead of trial.

An attorney for Mid Coast asked on Wednesday that the case be dismissed for lack of evidence. District Judge Michael Duddy denied the request.

Sutherland testified on Wednesday that she had trusted Salhany’s diagnosis and that the doctor’s advice led her to not consider her daughter’s symptoms urgent until it was too late. The 15-year-old died in an emergency room on Aug. 1, 2021, about six days after visiting Mid Coast.

“Did you have any idea what was happening to Jazzy?” her attorney, Meryl Poulin, asked.

“No,” Sutherland said. “If I did, I would have done something different.”

CALLS WITH DOCTORS

Sutherland’s lawyers played recordings from several calls between her and doctors at Mid Coast and Martin’s Point that July.

Martin’s Point declined to comment Monday and did not respond to several follow-up requests for comment this week.

Vincent had been diagnosed at Martin’s Point with walking pneumonia and prescribed prednisone, a steroid-based, anti-inflammatory medication. She was referred to Mid Coast after she developed severe swelling in her breasts and neck veins.

At Mid Coast, Salhany diagnosed the teen with gynecomastia because of her swollen breasts and advised her to stop taking prednisone, which Salhany thought could be to blame. She also suggested Vincent use cold cabbage leaves or another kind of compress on her breasts, wear a loose-fitting bra and follow up with her primary care provider.

Salhany testified on Tuesday she didn’t consult any medical literature about gynecomastia before making the diagnosis and that she didn’t review Vincent’s medical records from Martin’s Point to assess how the pneumonia diagnosis was reached.

A gynecology expert for Sutherland’s legal team, Dr. Shireen Donaldson-Ramos, testified Wednesday that gynecomastia “doesn’t affect 15-year-old girls” and that it’s a painless condition, more often seen in men who take anabolic steroids, which are different from prednisone.

Donaldson-Ramos said the problem isn’t that Salhany got the diagnosis wrong. She said Salhany had an obligation to get Vincent’s medical records and order further testing.

“She’s not a simple patient. This is not a simple diagnosis,” Donaldson-Ramos testified. “The whole picture should have raised suspicion that something else was going on.”

Sutherland testified that she had been relieved after the Mid Coast appointment to have an answer from Salhany. Sutherland called her daughter’s primary care doctor the next day and asked to stop the prednisone prescription.

“You believed so much in what the OBGYN had told you, that you were explaining it all in detail to her primary care provider,” her attorney Meryl Poulin asked. “Right?”

“Yes,” Sutherland said.

‘NOBODY SHOULD HAVE TO DO THIS’

Vincent’s symptoms continued to worsen after the appointment with Salhany. Within three days, she couldn’t stop throwing up. Martin’s Point couldn’t see her immediately, but referred her to the emergency room at Mid Coast Hospital. She was later transferred to Maine Medical Center in Portland.

Almost as soon as they arrived, Sutherland said, her daughter was surrounded by doctors who said she needed a chest tube.

Sutherland began to cry while testifying but never paused, even after Duddy, the judge, offered her a break. She recalled how afraid her daughter was in the emergency room and how her skin began to turn gray.

“I was trying to tell her that ‘I’m here for you,’ that ‘I’m not leaving,'” Sutherland said. “She just wanted to go home. … She said she just wanted to go home and watch movies with her cat.”

Since her daughter’s death, Sutherland said, she has had to sell their home in New Gloucester and their car, which Vincent had picked out, because there are too many memories.

Sutherland testified that she was pursuing this case for her daughter and anyone who might find themselves in a similar position.

“I don’t want anybody to have to do this,” she testified. “Nobody should have to do this.”