Posted on 04/29/2005 10:10:26 AM PDT by Calpernia
A 13-year-old boy declared brain dead after the spread of an infection following a dental procedure was taken off a ventilator on Thursday, and his heart and other organs stopped soon after, a hospital spokeswoman said.
The mechanical ventilator for Teron Francis was turned off at the request of his family shortly before 5 p.m., Montefiore Children's Hospital spokeswoman Pamela Adkins said. The boy's heart and other organs stopped by 5:05 p.m.
``Our hearts go out to the family, and we hope they will be allowed to find peace,'' the hospital said in a statement.
Teron was declared brain dead _ a diagnosis the hospital said means ``the patient is dead'' _ and a death certificate was issued last week.
Earlier Thursday, his family asked state Supreme Court Justice Douglas McKeon in the Bronx to vacate his Monday injunction preventing the hospital from taking the teen off the respirator.
The court hearing was attended by two doctors and the boy's mother, Marcelyn Francis.
She testified that she had hoped Teron might recover, that she hoped for a miracle ``but that she now accepted the fact that he was brain dead and there was no chance for his recovery,'' McKeon said in a telephone interview.
``I issued an order that vacated my injunction which prevented the hospital from taking him off life support,'' the judge said.
McKeon said he had issued the restraining order to give the boy's family time to ascertain through a second opinion whether he was indeed brain dead. But the mother had instructed doctors not to revive her son if his heart stopped.
The hospital has said there was no need for the family to go to court because the hospital's long-standing policy is to support and accommodate the family in its decision.
``It is our policy to give the family enough time to come to grips with the realization,'' hospital spokesman Steven Osborne said earlier this week.
McKeon, who took a keen interest in the case and visited Teron in the hospital, said he felt he couldn't make decisions regarding the boy without going to his bedside.
``I said in open court,'' he recalled, ``that I felt that a judge could not be asked to make a decision whether someone lives or dies and not go to the bedside of that person.''
After signing the order Monday, McKeon said he felt that Teron ``became my own child.''
>>>Trust a chiropractor before an orthodontist. They should all be in jail for the fraud and misery they cause.
Wow. Where did this come from? My teeth were straightened nicely by an orthodontist.>>>
Me too. After years of being called Vampirella, I LOVED my orthodontist. Although I'm convinced braces are a medieval torture device.
Sad about this boy though. Sometimes we forget that we are still vulnerable to simple infections.
Forcing air into lungs or food into a stomach is morally the same as forcing food into a stomach. If there is no hope that the treatment will lead to improvement in the patient, it is perfectly moral to remove the treatment.
>>>Would blood poisoning put a 13 y.o on life support? And not recover?>>>
Yes, especially if it spread to his brain.
Forcing air into lungs or food into a stomach is morally the same as forcing food into a stomach. If there is no hope that the treatment will lead to improvement in the patient, it is perfectly moral to remove the treatment.
I’ve done volunteer work for years with handicapped children whose sole source of nourishment comes via a feeding tube.
I don’t share your belief that it would be perfectly moral to remove the tube from their stomach. I don’t think they do either.
Read my post again. You completely misunderstood it.
I had to report my dentist of 19 years to the ADA because he wanted more money from me a month....$25.00 was not enough, so I changed it to $5.00.....Finally after reporting him I stopped getting billed....also, I got a letter from the ADA stating they sent him to some "refresher" course on how to be a nice dentist:-)
The kid was disabled. Do you support killing disabled children?
Yeah, I think it has something to do with the valve. I recall my dentist talking about it one time.
Not to mention her womb.
Anti-dentite.
Ooooh goody, can we have his organs???? That's pretty disgusting.(in reference of link #2)
As for what caused this boy to die, hopefully they'll do an autopsy. If this death was caused by an infected tooth, then the public needs to know the danger. Many people don't have insurance, and can't afford to see a dentist.
I guess I'd better quit putting off seeing Dr. Pain.
Prayers for Taron's family, also.
Also if you have had hardware installed. Pins, screws, plates, sythetic mesh, etc.
You need to read the article again before throwing around inane accusations. You're dead wrong.
It's a little strange for it to cause problems with an otherwise healthy young person. OTOH, my mother, 78, does take antibiotics for a few days before and after a dental visit. This is due to a combination of her age and the blood thinning drugs she takes.
My wife (who's 23) has had 4 open heart surgeries & she has to take a bottle of antibiotics before going to the dentist. Actually, maybe that has something to do with the fact that she hasn't gone in years...
Often they do, sometimes they don't but still don't cause any particular problems for the person. Pretty rare for them to cause problems. My father in law has one, perhaps from birth, but also perahaps from having scarlet fever as a child, and he's now 78.
Sounds like the socialized medical system didn't serve the kid too well. Anyone really surprised. And of course Hillary wants all of us under the same sort of system, with criminal penalties for trying to go "outside the system" even with one's own money.
They should have kept him alive for 15 years.
yea right. Terri was brain dead too, she just had brain stem function which kept her heart beating and lungs breathing.
Notice the sudden silence of the Shindlers. They have the atopsey report. If it was bad they would be screaming murder.
Spare me the drama "jerking a child out of a mothers arms and killing her"
yea right. that never happened either.
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