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A recording released by Ector County, Texas, captures the roughly 22-minute 911 call an adoptive mother placed as she tried to revive her 3-year-old son, who was found unresponsive at the family's home near Odessa and later pronounced dead, according to authorities.

The boy, Max Alan Shatto, was born Maxim Kuzmin in Russia. He and his younger brother had been adopted by Alan and Laura Shatto and brought to the United States in late 2012. Max died Jan. 21, 2013, at the family's home in Gardendale, a community in rural West Texas.

On the call, Laura Shatto tells a dispatcher the boy is not breathing and describes him as autistic, self-injurious and on medication. She says she had left him playing outside and stepped indoors briefly, then found him on the ground. She performs CPR as the dispatcher relays instructions and asks her to check for a pulse.

About 18 minutes into the call, using a stethoscope, Shatto says she believes she detects a heartbeat but cannot locate a pulse in the carotid artery. 'It's really faint,' she tells the dispatcher, later pleading, 'Please, I need help.' Emergency crews took over when they arrived.

Medical Examiner Lloyd White listed the cause of death as a laceration of the small bowel mesentery caused by blunt trauma to the abdomen. An investigator who examined the body documented 31 bruises, abrasions and other marks. Four pathologists reviewed the case and ruled the death accidental, finding the bruising consistent with a self-injurious behavioral disorder. No drugs were found in the boy's system.

An Ector County grand jury declined on March 18, 2013, to indict the couple, and District Attorney Bobby Bland said there was no evidence to support charges. Investigators concluded Max most likely sustained the fatal injury while playing with his 2-year-old brother during roughly 10 minutes the mother was inside the house.

The death became a flashpoint in a dispute over American adoptions of Russian children. Russia, which had barred such adoptions weeks earlier, publicly questioned the findings. Its children's rights envoy called the autopsy 'biased and hasty,' and thousands demonstrated in Moscow.