South Carolina Ping
Posted on 11/04/2005 3:24:09 AM PST by 8mmMauser
Family members are investigating what they consider to be suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of a nursing home patient at the center of a life and death tug-of-war reminiscent of the Terri Schiavo tragedy.
Seventy-nine-year-old Jimmy Chambers died in the early morning hours of Oct. 24 after the tracheotomy tubes that deliver oxygen from a ventilator to a hole in his neck became unhooked. Family members were told Chambers, a resident of the Anne Maria Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in North Augusta, S.C., apparently pulled the interlocking tubes apart.
"We're having it investigated. We're just incredulous," Chambers' daughter, Deanna Potter, told WND in reference to her siblings. "The last time I saw dad he was blowing me a kiss. I blew him one and he blew one back."
The retired dispatcher for Holland Motor Express died approximately 10 hours later. His death certificate indicates he died of "natural causes."
"Apparently, suffocation is a 'natural cause' when you're on a ventilator. We're contesting that," said Potter. "He suffocated. He didn't just pass away. He struggled and fought. And I'm just so angry."
Potter estimates it would have taken 10 to 14 minutes for her father, deprived of oxygen, to fall unconscious, and questions why the nursing home staff didn't come to his aid.
"The oxygen-saturation meter and his ventilator both would have had alarms going off. Four-thirty, five o'clock in the morning you'd think someone would hear this," she added. "That's the thing that really bothers me and makes me suspicious."
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1506323/posts?page=233#233
8mm
pingout tomorrow.
Pings to this new thread and warm welcome to the family. If I am leaving someone out on these two pings, please let me know.
May God bless you family members for the incredible suffering you endure.
8mm
bump
Patient wants to live, but old 'living will' mandates death
8mm
Patient's wishes aren't important anymore, spouse trumps your own decision making if you're disabled.
Ten other family members – including four of his five children – and his initial treating physician signed sworn statements that Chambers himself indicated he wanted to stay on the ventilator, receive rehabilitative therapy and live. They say he communicated this by nodding his head "yes" and "no" to questions put to him during a Sept. 8 family meeting witnessed by 13 people in his hospital room.
you have to read the whole article...
Maybe kalintabby and the in-law would want to be pinged also.
Thanks for making the new thread.
I wish this sort of thing didn't happen very often, but I'm afraid it is all too commonplace these days.
When the boomers hit the nursing homes in record numbers this story will be common.
Pinging you to this new thread.
8mm
The presumption seems to be that the patient will want to die instead of living. This is the result of a cultural shift more than anything else. So when a patient says otherwise, he is seen as being irrational.
Twenty years ago, it would have been just the opposite. It was the patient who wanted to die who was seen as being depressed and suicidal. The presumption was that everybody wanted to live.
Just another by-product of the culture of death. Frankly, at this rate, twenty years from now living wills will be obsolete. Incapacitated patients will just be routinely put down, like horses with broken legs. If you don't want that happening to you, I suggest you make your wishes known to all members of your family and write unequivocal letters to each, stating your desires. If you're really lucky, maybe one of them will do the right thing and respect your wishes.
When the boomers hit the nursing homes, and the cost of their care is being borne by the state, death will become downright fashionable. "Right to Die" will morph seamlessly into "Duty to Die" almost overnight.
I am trying to recall the details. Some time weeks earlier we did some looking into the Anne Maria Rehabilitation Center and to their potential role. Such a blizzard of events has unfolded that I have not yet relocated the topic.
Do you have those details?
8mm
Thanks for the ping, I was unaware of this story. This is why I will keep all loved ones out of nursing homes if at all possible. My Mom died at home under my Dad's loving care, my MIL is living at home with my FIL with advanced alzheimers, and I will do whatever I have to to make sure that no one I love is put into the care of strangers. I realize that sometimes there are no other options, however, if these places were reserved for only those cases in which there truely was no family member to care for them, or there were complications that made it impossible to take care of them at home, this trend of actively killing the helpless among us would come to a screeching halt.
And yes, I understand exactly how difficult it is to take care of someone at home. But we do owe our parents and other loved ones this.
susie
Thanks, 8mmMauser.
Damn, just damn!! The mother has lost her children and her husband - all by her own selfishness. Incredible - a family torn apart because the father wanted to live. God bless his children for their unrelentless fight against evil. What a horrific death - being in the care of professionals while gasping for breath and no one hears. I'm sure felos would disagree with me.
Scott is fighting for his life and his wife wants him dead and the courts so far may find in her favor.
North Country Gazette reports an update.
Eliza Thomas, 29, a Polish immigrant who married Jacksonville resident Scott Thomas, 34, had sued First Coast News, which comprises Jacksonville television stations WTLV TV and WJXX TV for reports beginning on May 16, 2005, regarding injuries suffered by Scott which resulted in neurological damage.
She says he fell backwards over the family dog in the kitchen of their home on Sept. 5, 2004, striking his head but doctors for the incapacitated man say that his injuries aren't consistent with such a fall. According to his mother, Scott says that his wife struck him in the head, causing serious head trauma.
Wife Of Brain Injured Jacksonville Man Loses Libel Claim
8mm
Yeah, my Dad looked into Hospice care for my Mom. Unfortunately they would not help with her because she did not want to stop all treatments other than pallitive. That is my only qualm with hospice.
They did have a visiting nurse thru Medicare (I think it was thru Medicare). But, they were unreliable at best. Mom didn't want to go into the hospital or a nursing home (I personaly think she was afraid, altho she never actually said that). I'll tell you one thing. My Dad and my FIL have been role models of taking the in sickness and in health part of the wedding vows seriously. God Bless em.
susie
IMO, we are already there.
Yeah, we are. When a site like FR has a group of people who believe in this, we're in trouble.
As gridlock said, we've moved from people believing in a default state of life to a default state of death. Our instinct is to fight for life. When we are injured, our bodies naturally struggle to repair the damage, struggle to breathe, we fight. We spend countless dollars on medical research, medical treatments, etc. to find a way to survive just a bit longer. It's just natural that we work to live. Yet in the face of all the daily evidence that we fight to live, society has determined that those unable to speak for themselves would rather choose death.
You're exactly right. It's easy to sit back in a moment of reflection and imagine the circumstances that you would or would not want to live with and to make a living will based on those thoughts. It's a vastly different thing to look at death and say, if there's a chance, I want to take it. There are bunches of people in the health care profession and out of it who think that a person shouldn't change their mind. Our family compares it to the man who wants to commit suicide, reaches the edge of the precipice and decides to live. Then someone behind him says, "You made up your mind" and then gives him a push off of the edge. The merchants of death are in hospitals, nursing homes and all over the places where you would expect to find healing.
You have said it so well. When we are in good health, we look at the future and think, well, I wouldn't want to live like that, that's not living. But I have found from personal experience that when it comes right down to making the decision when we're IN the circumstances we hoped we'd never have to face, that somehow you summon the courage to give it another shot. It's only when there's truly no hope left that we begin to succumb. There is almost always some ray of hope left, as there was for your father. Most people are really born to fight for their life. He wanted more time with his family. He wanted to give it everything he had. If that meant being reliant on significant help, so be it. Life is a gift and a blessing. He recognized that. I'm very very sorry that your mother didn't see it through his newly informed eyes. She could only see it from her point of view. She will have to live with her actions. I hope she doesn't regret them, but if she does, I hope that your family can find peace and unity again.
Meant to ping you to my last post, too. Your words were very eloquent.
A lot of people don't realize that after the hospital gives you morphine for the pain, you're unable to communicate so you can't make your wishes known, and you can go downhill quickly. The family members, when consulted, are anxious to spare the person pain and thus acquiesce to no resuscitation.
It is already common and has been for years. All you have to do is walk into any nursing home and see that everyone is drugged to the gills so that they don't give the workers there any trouble. Having worked in a nursing home in the sixties, I can tell you nothing has changed which is why my parents didn't go to one.
The biggest problem that I have with Living Wills is that they are not revokable when you most need them so. Once you pass the power of your life or death into anothers hands you have given up all rights.
Thanks for the ping.
My lawyer was after me to sign one of these things. I told her I would sign one if it was time limited to one year, to be renewed or void every year on my birthday. She told me that that was a useless provision because if you failed to renew it, it would still have effect, no matter what language was used saying it was void after a certain date.
Reading this story makes me realize she's a pretty good lawyer, because she's absolutely right.
I know. I also know that an untold number of deaths in nursing homes and hospitals occur when a dosage of pain-killer is 'accidently' (wink,wink,nudge,nudge) given after a private talk a family member will have with a care-giver.
When I first heard that my parents had signed Living Wills, I didn't think anything about it. Then during a trip to Florida we had to admit my Daddy to the hospital and had to sign some DNR forms. It just about killed me to do it because that was when I first became aware of his mortality. He had terminal cancer and it had metastasized throughout his body and even though we knew it was a matter of time, it was as if I were signing a death warrant for him. Luckily it was not used on that visit. Daddy's last two days were spent in a wonderful hospice center in Broward County. Momma said that even though he was not concious, they made him extremely comfortable.
When my Momma moved her to South Carolina, our attorney told her that the Living Will that she had drawn up in Florida would not be legal in the State of South Carolina. So she drew up another. Momma too had cancer. She stayed at home until her death. The night before she died, she asked me to let her go. I didn't want to know to what she was referring but the next morning she was taking her last breathes, I did get to tell her that I loved her before she left.
I don't recommend Living Wills because each case is different, each person fights back in their own way. If a person wants to die, they will and nothing anyone does will stop it from happening.
Each of us has a time here on earth and when GOD wants us to come home, when our job here is finished, we will go to HIM.
There are always "Angels of Death" who think that they are helping the patient. That they have a calling to do so. They are murderers, plain and simple.
The Hospice people at the Hollings Center here in the Tri-County area are wonderful. I wish that we had stayed with them instead of going to the Summerville group. They had just formed and the people that I had to deal with were surly and wouldn't help.
One of the most important things that Hospice Givers do is give respite for the caregiver at home. That contributes just as much to the patients well being as good health care.
In 2 weeks I'm taking my family down to Dunedin to see my Father-in-law who has alzheimers and is said to be in a good home.
I have family in that area. Have a good trip and be safe.
How long before the hair sample can be processed? Mom was smart to get a sample. Thanks for the ping!
It is too bad that the living will Mr. Chambers had signed from Iowa was considered legal in South Carolina. It apparently is nearly impossible to revoke one once it is issued. Living wills are dangerous documents, and not the "life-saver" that they are made out to be.
Thats what bothers me. If my Momma's was illegal because it was out of state, how can one from Iowa be legal?
The living will was absolutely declared valid.... it was almost worshipped by the health care establishment. The problem in SC is the ADULT HEALTH CARE CONSENT ACT. It was the only law that anyone seemed to care about. It lists the people that have the right to make health care decisions for one who is not capable, in their order of priority. Spouse is way up there and there was no one with the guts to question her decisions because of that law. At one point, my mother asked the Long Term Care Ombudsman if she had the right to disconnect his ventilator. The Ombudsman said she did, and she declared that she would do just that WITH A SMILE OF VICTORY ON HER FACE!!! Now wouldn't you think that the ombudsman might just question what the heck was going on? Nope -- living will and the Adult Health Care Consent Act. Mind you, the ombudsman didn't even question whether or not he may be capable of making his own decisions, even though we strenuously told her that he could.
On another occasion, I sat with Kevin Ginn, the CEO of the nursing home. What documents did he have on his desk? -- living will and DNR. He didn't bother with the affidavits showing that Dad revoked the living will.
The living will document is scripture the Death Merchants in the health care establishment. Unbelievable but true.
Hi, 8mm -- good job. Thanks for the post and the ping.
Yep, I've come to think of Living Wills as Death documents and not a thing more. Death merchants don't belong in the healthcare industry, but they are there. They came while we weren't paying attention.
This sounds like negligence on the nursing home. The do-not-resusitate order doesn't mean they would not reconnect the respirator. My mother passed away recently. She was on a respirator the last 3 months of her life. Several times the respirator became disconnect while she was moving her hands. It was a simple connection. One tube slide into another tube. Alarms go off but the response was usual poor. I would reconnect it. Alarms are going off all time. Infusion pumps failing, respirators, etc. The response is alway poor.
I hadn't heard about this man's fight to live, wonder if Terri's murder gave his "wife" ideas. I hope the outcome of this case is different than Terri's.
BTTT
Post #446 - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1494762/posts?page=446#446 Wampus SC's post providing contact info.
Post #30 - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1506323/posts?page=30#30 My post listing news articles about Anne Maria. Their record is shocking.
DadsGirl, you and your family should take a look at this.
Most of his family did the right thing. All it took was one to do the wrong, and now he's dead.
The outcome is the same. They're both dead, and no one's been arrested. Hopefully both situations will change to include the arrests of those responsible.
This has changed our family. We want to fight the death culture and the living wills. My Dad won't die in vain. God is going to help us all do what we can to overcome evil with good.
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