Posted on 03/28/2005 10:39:04 PM PST by Sola Veritas
PINELLAS PARK, Florida (CNN) -- Terri Schiavo's husband has asked that an autopsy be performed on his wife after she dies so that a full report can be done on the extent of her brain damage, an attorney for Michael Schiavo said Monday.
Attorney George Felos said the autopsy will be performed by Dr. Jon Thogmartin, the chief medical examiner of Pinellas County.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
My first thought was that if he's going to let an autopsy happen, the pro-Terri conspiracy theorists will never, ever believe the results if they show that Terri's cortex had indeed been replaced wholly by spinal fluid and thus was not "there" all this time, or if there are no murderous signs.
.
Please take a look at Freeper reformjoy's outstanding Post No. 15.
How prophetic of her..?
ALOHA RONNIE
That's what I've heard as well. But boy the media & Felos sure are making it out like MS requested it.
The autopsy will be made public after it is performed by Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Jon Thogmartin, attorney George Felos said.
They are busy trying to make him look like a saint of a husband
Folks are free to debate with me the laws, the records, whatever
But NO ONE will ever convince me he his a saint
No need to apologize for conspiracy-think. Pinellas County looks like quite the rat's nest. In fact, it doesn't matter how brain damaged she was. She was not dying from it. She was inconvenient because of it, to MS anyway.
This ought to elicit some very amusing replies, and bring the wackers out in force.
But you assume he is. Why?
Here's the New York Times version of the story. It's from today's edition and written by Rick Lyman. The headline reads, "Schiavo's Husband Says Autopsy Will End Suspicions."
PINELLAS PARK, Fla., March 28 - As Terri Schiavo was in her 11th day without food or water and seemingly has no more than a handful of days to live, her husband said that a full autopsy would be performed before her cremation.
George Felos, the lawyer for Ms. Schiavo's husband, Michael, said that Mr. Schiavo believed that it was "important to have the public know the full and massive extent of the damage to Ms. Schiavo's brain" to counteract accusations that she was cognizant, communicative and being starved to death against her will.
In addition, he said, Mr. Schiavo wants to allay accusations from some of those fighting to keep his wife alive that he would have her cremated with undue haste, perhaps because he had something to hide, like abuse or physical trauma.
The announcement of the autopsy to be performed by Pinellas County's chief medical examiner, Jon R. Thogmartin, was part of an increasingly emotional war of words and images on Monday between Ms. Schiavo's parents and brother and sister, who want her feeding tube reinserted, and her husband, who says she would prefer to die.
"She is fighting like hell to live, begging for life," said Ms. Schiavo's father, Robert Schindler, red-eyed and weary as he stood outside his daughter's hospice. "She is still responding to me. She is begging for help."
Mr. Felos, who spent more than an hour with the stricken woman on Monday afternoon, disputed that description. "Ms. Schiavo's appearance, to me, was very calm, very relaxed, very peaceful," he said. "I saw no evidence of any bodily discomfort whatsoever."
It is not known how long Ms. Schiavo, 41, can last without nutrition. But it is clear that the end of the long court fight between her husband and her parents has eased neither the bitterness between them nor the raw emotions surrounding the case.
"It's not too late for someone to save her," Mr. Schindler said. "I plead again for the powers that be not to give up hope on her. We haven't given up hope. She hasn't given up on us."
As her doctors have said and the courts have ruled, Mr. Felos said, Ms. Schiavo is too brain-damaged to be aware of the world around her, although she does have reflexes that may at times mimic consciousness.
"When I walked in, her eyes were closed," Mr. Felos said. "I rubbed her cheek and her eyes opened. To someone who wants to believe there's something there, it's understandable."
The Schindlers describe their daughter as resembling a concentration camp survivor - emaciated, but clinging to life. "She still has facial expressions," Mr. Schindler said. "I hug her, I kiss her, and she's responding to that."
Mr. Felos said she was breathing more quickly and her eyes appeared more sunken, but her breathing was not especially labored and her skin tone was fine. Hospice nurses, however, have told Mr. Schiavo that his wife's pulse is "thready" and that she has stopped producing urine.
"Obviously, death is near," Mr. Felos said. Although the Schindler family has asked that their daughter not be cremated, but buried near them in Florida following a Roman Catholic funeral, Mr. Schiavo has said that his wife did not want to be buried, and he will inter her ashes in his own family's plot in Pennsylvania.
Mr. Schindler said he decided to repeat his appeal to political leaders, including Gov. Jeb. Bush, to intervene because he did not trust the intentions of those caring for his daughter.
"I have a grave concern that they'll expedite the process to kill her with an overdose of morphine," Mr. Schindler said.
The issue of whether Ms. Schiavo was receiving morphine and why has been a persistent source of concern among the protesters outside her hospice. Some of the placards and statements from supporters have referred to her being on a morphine drip, which many saw as evidence that she was dying in pain.
Mr. Felos said Monday that Ms. Schiavo had never been on a morphine drip. She has received two five-milligram suppository doses of morphine in the last 11 days, most recently two days ago, he said. Each dose was minimal, he said, and would have worn off in about four hours.
"I understand the frustration of the Schindler family, but there is no place for statements such as, 'The hospice is trying to accelerate Terri's death,' " Mr. Felos said.
Dr. R. Sean Morrison, a professor of geriatrics and palliative care at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said the morphine dose was "less than taking one Percocet tablet" and unlikely to have any depressive effect on Ms. Schiavo's breathing or to hasten death.
Another doctor with long experience treating patients at the end of life, Douglas Nelson of Hickory, N.C., said that providing morphine to a patient in a persistent vegetative state was unnecessary because the patient would be unaware of pain or discomfort.
But, Dr. Nelson said, "It's not uncommon for the nurse to suggest, 'Let's just give her a suppository to be on the safe side.' "
The crowd outside the Woodside Hospice House in this Tampa Bay community was thinner than it was over the Easter weekend, although the intensity of the protesters' sorrow and anger was undiminished.
Governor Bush, a hero to supporters of the Schindlers when he championed their cause and briefly had Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted, has rapidly become one of their chief targets since saying there was no more he could do.
As he has since late last week, Governor Bush told reporters on Monday that he wished he could do more but that he had come to the end of his legal powers.
"I have a duty to follow the law," he said. "I was criticized for pushing as far as I could. Now, I'm criticized for not doing enough. That's a pretty good sign that I'm in the right place."
Some supporters of the Schindlers took their case to Washington, where the Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition led a rally on Monday outside the White House and urged Congress to intervene further.
Almost lost in the rancor of the last week have been court appeals filed by the Florida Department of Children and Families against three decisions by the state judge who ordered the removal of Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube. Those appeals still sit with the Second District Court of Appeal in Lakeland, Mr. Felos said, and are the only undecided issues in the tangle of court cases.
The post did not make that assumption in so far as I could tell.
406.11 Examinations, investigations, and autopsies.-- (1) In any of the following circumstances involving the death of a human being, the medical examiner of the district in which the death occurred or the body was found shall determine the cause of death and shall, for that purpose, make or have performed such examinations, investigations, and autopsies as he or she shall deem necessary or as shall be requested by the state attorney:Seems the requirement is to determine cause of death, but no more unless the state attorney gets involved.(a) When any person dies in the state:
...
(c) When a body is to be cremated, dissected, or buried at sea.
The left wing activists are spinning Terri into her grave like a corkscrew.
Are there some states that demand an autopsy **after** cremation?
Yes.
Don't we already know that?
Dehydration.
It deserves repeating!!!
I'm bet a doctor of the family's chosing to be present at the autopsy wouldn't be permitted by MS. Bob and Mary ought to make the request anyway - if for nothing more than to get a response on record.
I put NOTHING past those whack-job incompetent corrupt ghouls in Florida.
WorldNetDaily and NewsMax told them so.
So away with your 'autopsy' claptrap. More information at this point could only cloud the truth.
I think Jersey Republican Biker Chick is the authority on that. Perhaps she will clarify it for you.
Jersey Republican Biker Chick ...
"What investigation? Unless the federal court overturns Greer's order, Terri is to be immediately cremated with no autopsy. Yet another order to cover up what really happened to Terri."
18 posted on 03/21/2005 12:15:36 PM EST by Jersey Republican Biker Chick (Never play leapfrog with a unicorn!)
From ... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1367265/posts
It is not mandatory -- according to the law. It is discretionary.
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