Posted on 03/31/2005 4:22:10 PM PST by tallhappy
By Karen Testa, Associated Press writer
CARTERVILLE, Mo. -- A sheet-metal worker with a high school education, Joe Cruzan reluctantly waged a battle of national proportions to break new legal ground in the right-to-die movement.
In the end, though, he was just a father whose heart was broken beyond repair when a 1983 auto accident left his daughter Nancy in a persistent vegetative state. Without publicity, without a fight in court, in the privacy of his carport, Joe Cruzan exercised his own right to die this weekend.
He hanged himself.
"Psychiatrists tell us that the loss of a child is the single greatest harm the human psyche could suffer," said William Colby, a lawyer who helped the Cruzans' legal fight to have Nancy's feeding tube removed. "That loss opened a wound that never really closed again."
Police found Mr. Cruzan's body Saturday in the carport of his home after they were called by his wife, Joyce. He had left a suicide note on the dining room table telling her to call police, apparently so she wouldn't see his body. No other details of the note were released.
Friends of the 62-year-old blamed his death on his sorrow after his daughter's accident and the heart-wrenching, four-year battle to remove the life-sustaining care that he said she would not have wanted.
"He was receiving a great deal of animosity and opposition," said the Rev. Kevin O'Rourke, director of the Center for Health Care Ethics at St. Louis University health sciences center. "These things went deep -- the anguish, the suffering he was put through. That went deeper than anyone realized and seemed to inflict psychological wounds that couldn't heal."
Mr. Cruzan, who was married and had two other daughters, couldn't even stand to see those who cursed him suffer.
One day Mr. Cruzan watched protesters shivering outside the Missouri Rehabilitation Center, where his daughter lay in a coma. He drove to a Wal-Mart nearby, bought an extension cord and a coffee maker, and carried out steaming cups to those who were fighting against him, said Van Benson, Mr. Cruzan's nephew.
"He was a sensitive man and a compassionate man and cared about people," said Mr. Benson, who was to officiate at Mr. Cruzan's funeral. "When he saw other people hurting, he hurt too."
Mostly, Mr. Cruzan hurt for Nancy. Doctors said she could have lived 30 or 40 years in a coma after the accident. After four years, the Cruzans went to court to get permission to remove her feeding tube. The case took almost another four years.
Finally, in a landmark decision, the Supreme Court ruled in 1990 that patients like Nancy can be allowed to die if there is "clear and convincing" evidence that it was their wish.
Three people who had worked with Nancy at a home for disabled children testified she had expressed such feelings.
Twelve days after the ruling, Nancy died. She was 33.
"I think he counted the final authorization of the court to set his daughter free as both his greatest and his saddest accomplishment in his life," Mr. Colby said.
Mr. Cruzan's homespun, heartfelt style made him an effective speaker to legislators and reporters across the country. He was a simple man, uncomfortable in the spotlight.
"I would prefer to let my daughter die and let somebody else be this trailblazer," he said after Nancy's funeral. "Our courage came from the young lady we just buried."
One word to Michael Schiavo. May you have Joe Cruzan's courage.
Sooner rather than later.
As Dan Rather would say: "Courage"
If Mr. Cruzan truly had such certainty, why was he depressed enough to hang himself?
Bingo!
One word to Michael Schiavo. May you have Joe Cruzan's courage.
A bit over the top to say the least..
Exactly.
No one except the Lord has certainty of the cognitive power of the damaged human brain, nor the wishes of an incapacitated person who left no written directive (which acknowledges that it removes their option to change their mind. As Christopher Reeve changed his mind, but fortunately was able to commmunicate.
I have my own questions about the character of Michael Schiavo, but I wouldn't wish this on him.
(I have a personal view on suicide. I lost a brother to it).
Thank you. I was thinking the same thing as I was reading the article.
Her sister runs the Cruzan Foundation. I do not know what their stance is, regarding hastening of death by denial of basic necessities for bodily function. I think they justify it, and help families rationize hastening of death.
I think he was suffering from terminal guilt.
The difference here is that I believe Mr. Cruzan truly loved his daughter. I can't say the same for MS.
Man. So sorry to hear about your brother. May God bless you with a rich helping of the Holy Spirit, and peace that surpasses human understanding. Life on earth is "designed" to be imperfect.
He must have been a severely depressed man - he hanged himself. He got what he wanted - the daughter died just like Schiavo - but then he inflicts this suffering on his family by his own untimely death.
Should not those people who listened to him now reassess?
This article tries to make it sound as if the people who opposed the removal of the daughter's feeding tube, are somehow responsible for his suicide.
"One word to Michael Schiavo. May you have Joe Cruzan's courage."
Amen, and Greer, Felos, the lot of them.
Don't tell me this man did this because some people disagreed with him, maybe even were mean about it. Not so many years later. With two other children alive? Puhleeze, this was guilt.
Thanks for posting this, I never knew it.
From what I know I agree. I think he was fooled in to doing something extremely horrible to her.
It sounds as if he sentenced himself to death for executing his daughter.
I believe he could not live with the results of the 'law of unintended consequences.'
I am sure there were people who (accurately, as it turned out) told him that what he was turn would turn to something like this.
He had the opportunity to live to see it happening.
And he couldn't live with it.
What we do today often affects those we do not know, for good or evil.
May we continue to fight the good fight for Life.
May the Hemlock Society, now called Choice In Dying, be shown as the harbingers of death and cruelty that they truly are.
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