People do not necessarily die upon removal of “life support” which can include several things.
Sometimes they don’t die at all, which can be just as devastating.
It is a sickening thing that the media misreported this.
TMZ was accurate, CBS was not. Crazy times.
It is true that enough involuntary brain function can be preserved in what is called hypoxic (low oxygen) condition of a short duration (from 3-10 minutes) while no-oxygen condition (in the case of drowning, or a cardiac arrest in which the heart is fibrillating— that is an un-organized quivering mass of muscle with out any rhythm and thus not pumping out any blood directly from the oxygenating lungs)can result in permanent brain damage and/or brain death. The respirator, if the heart is nominally restored to some kind of rhthym or induced rhythm from another device, can maintain oxygen to what cells are not killed off. Sorry, but this is clinical (can look this up online under hypoxia/anoxia).
If he was in complete Ventricular fibrillation (zero rhythm of any kind) for 3-9 minutes fully depriving the brain of oxygen, the brain has a reserve of some oxygen (and glucose stored) to keep some brain cells alive, perhaps 3 minutes. The upper brain (temporal lobe- where memory is located) is often affected first and then the lack of circulation/blood sugar continues down into the brain stem/cerebellum which controls muscular activity. So, cognitive parts of the brain may only partially survive or not, and breathing and heart normal rhythm possibly restored. But the memory loss can be permanent.
If— (and it seems unlikely, though we don’t know) CPR (cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, which everyone should know how to do properly) was administered rapidly after the first signs of cardiac arrest, there would be a chance of recovery. Like in a heart attack (where the muscles affected actually die), some function could be saved. But we don’t know who found him, and how soon or during a heart attack it was.
From the outside looking in- his prognosis is not good, and the experience of such a debilitation is not something a typical rocknroll child of LA can really face, having largely been living in a pampered bubble in the shadow of a great famous artist. Very much a shame if any of this happens to him for lack of CPR. Why we now have defibrillators in airports and other public places. The phrase, terrible as it is: “time is tissue”.