Schiavo autopsy results to be released Wednesday

ABC Action News ^ | 6/14/05

[areafiftyone]

LARGO - The long-awaited results from Terri Schiavo's autopsy will be released Wednesday morning, Pinellas County officials announced today.

The brain-damaged woman died at her Pinellas Park hospice on March 31, two weeks after the removal of her feeding tube. During the course of the legal battle, allegations surfaced that Michael Schiavo abused Terri. Those complaints had previously been dismissed in court, but the autopsy is expected to settle that question for good.

The autopsy is also expected to reveal what condition Terri was actually in when she died. Her parents insisted that she was minimally conscious, but most medical experts agreed that her apparent responses were involuntary movements.

The autopsy was performed by Dr. Jon Thogmartin, the Pinellas-Pasco medical examiner. He is expected to talk at the 11 a.m. press conference Wednesday.

[floriduh voter]

Ya think they're feeling the heat in DC over this? They better be. This should not have happened to Terri. It can't be any simpler than that. Now, I'm calling it a night. goodnight, freepers...

[Halls]

Me to, night FV

[Sun]

Does anyone have a link to where Michael said that Terri had a heart attack?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Sun]

I found a link to where Michael said Terri had a heart attack.

Her husband, Michael Schiavo, who witnessed her collapse, says that Terri, then 26, had a heart attack caused by a low potassium level—possibly due to an eating disorder. This is the theory Michael, a nurse and respiratory therapist, successfully presented in a malpractice suit against Terri’s doctors. The jury award was over $1 million: $300,000 for Michael’s loss of companionship and $750,000 for Terri’s ongoing care and rehabilitation.

http://www.internationaltaskforce.org/iua29.htm

[T'wit]

>> On another note, a friend told me that dehydrating Terri would in fact have dehydrated her brain as well, making it shrink.

I don't believe that's so. The brain had suffered atrophy years ago and was stable. The missing tissue was replaced by a fluid, still present at her death.

[T'wit]

That's kind of funny. He has said elsewhere that he didn't witness it, just heard a big thump when she collapsed. He has said a lot of things about that night and I don't think he's told the same story twice.

You know how it is with wives who make their husband furious by spending $80 on a haircut. They get up at 5:30 in the morning and have a heart attack.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

"It concerned O'Donnell that the autopsy results placed so much emphasis on how Terri died."

That's a no-brainer. She died from dehydration. And I wonder if she lost her sight from dehydration, too. After all, her eyes became so dry that she was bleeding from her eye sockets.

Hannity pointed out that she did not have a heart attack, nor did she show any signs of bulemia. That proves that the death trolls didn't have a clue about her-- except in their own minds.

Cause of collapse: not solved. That's a big question, isn't it? And not a word about her bone condition? Am I right about that? And as for dehyrdration of the brain, well I'm too much of a layman to discuss that. Someone on radio asked today what dehydration does to a brain. But regardless, if that tape was actually her voice, I don't care what the fluid level reportedly was.

And final, most important point: no witnesses allowed to monitor the autopsy. Why not? What was he hiding?

[amdgmary]

Schiavo's Parents Not Swayed by Autopsy

June 16, 2005 Associated Press

LARGO, Fla. - An autopsy that found Terri Schiavo suffered from severe and irreversible brain-damage has done nothing to sway her parents' position that she deserved to live and may have gotten better with therapy.

The long-awaited report Wednesday found Schiavo's brain had shrunk to about half the normal size for a woman her age when she died March 31 after her feeding tube was disconnected. The autopsy also determined she was blind.

Bob and Mary Schindler disputed the results, insisting their daughter interacted with them and tried to speak. Their attorney said the family plans to discuss the autopsy with other medical experts and may take some unspecified legal action.

"We knew all along that Terri was profoundly brain damaged," said Schiavo's brother, Bobby Schindler. "We simply wanted to bring her home and care for her. It all goes back to this quality of life."

The findings vindicated Schiavo's husband in his long and vitriolic battle with his in-laws that engulfed the courts, Congress and the White House and divided the country. Michael Schiavo and court-appointed doctors have said she had no hope of recovery. She died at age 41.

The autopsy also found no evidence that Terri Schiavo was strangled or otherwise abused before her sudden 1990 collapse — countering allegations by the Schindlers that she was abused by her husband.

Yet medical examiners could not say for certain what caused the collapse, long thought to have been brought on by an eating disorder.

George Felos, attorney for Michael Schiavo, said the findings back up their contentions made "for years and years" that Terri Schiavo had no hope of recovery. He said Michael Schiavo plans to release autopsy photographs of her shrunken brain.

"Mr. Schiavo has received so much criticism throughout this case that I'm certain there's a part of him that was pleased to hear these results and the hard science behind them," Felos said.

The Schindlers fought their son-in-law in court over their daughter's fate for nearly seven years, battling to the end with conservatives at their side.

The autopsy counters a widely seen videotape the Schindlers released of Schiavo in her hospice bed. The video showed Schiavo appearing to turn toward her mother's voice and smile. She moaned and laughed. Her head moved up and down and she seemed to follow the progress of a brightly colored Mickey Mouse balloon.

Schiavo's parents said that showed she was aware of her surroundings, but doctors said her reactions were automatic responses and not evidence of thought or consciousness.

"There's nothing in her autopsy report that is inconsistent with a persistent vegetative state," said Dr. Stephen J. Nelson, a medical examiner who assisted in the neurological portion of the autopsy.

The cause of death was dehydration from removal of the feeding tube, but the underlying reason for her brain damage was officially listed as "undetermined."

The autopsy included 274 external and internal body images and an exhaustive review of Schiavo's medical records, police reports and social services agency records.

Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Dr. Jon Thogmartin said that the autopsy produced no conclusion on what triggered the temporary heart stoppage that caused her collapse and brain damage. He said there was no evidence of drug use, though he cautioned that Schiavo was not tested in 1990 for every conceivable substance that could have been in her blood.

He said there was no proof she suffered from an eating disorder such as bulimia, which can disrupt the body chemistry with lethal effect. The main piece of evidence cited for an eating disorder — the low levels of potassium in her blood in 1990 — could have been caused by the emergency treatment she received at the time, Thogmartin said.

While she had lost more than 100 pounds since high school, Schiavo never confessed to an eating disorder, she did not take diet pills and no one had witnessed her purging food, the medical examiner said.

He discounted the possibility that she had overdosed on caffeine from drinking large amounts of tea in an effort to keep her weight down.

In addition, the autopsy found no traces of morphine in her system at her death, although she had been given two doses in the days before she died. The Schindlers had contended that morphine might have been used to speed their daughter's death.

In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the autopsy did nothing to change President Bush's position that Schiavo's feeding tube should not have been disconnected. He had signed a bill, rushed through by Congress in March, that was a last-ditch effort to restore her feeding tube.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050616/ap_on_re_us/schiavo_autopsy

[amdgmary]

CWA Responds to Schiavo Autopsy Report: No Excuses for Dehydrating the Disabled

WASHINGTON, June 15 /Christian Wire Service/ -- Concerned Women for America (CWA) responded to the autopsy report on Terri Schiavo, released today by a medical examiner for Florida's Pinellas-Pasco County, which confirmed that the "removal of [Terri's] feeding tube resulted in her death."

"Terri Schiavo's autopsy results confirm what was feared – she was disabled, and her death was due to the deliberate denial of hydration," said Wendy Wright, CWA's senior policy director. "The autopsy report described Terri's medical history and condition in detail, but the cold reality of the truth is that her cause of death was 'dehydration.' Terri Schiavo died because the court ordered the removal of the instrument that provided her water.

"There is no medical condition or disability that should ever be championed as a justifiable reason to deny water to a human being. Every human life has worth and a purpose apart from its 'merit' to society that must be vigorously defended and upheld, not crushed."

"While people may personally dread becoming handicapped, people with disabilities deserve mercy, not malice. Only a calloused society in moral freefall would deny a disabled person her most basic need – water," said Wright.

Concerned Women for America is the nation's largest public policy women's organization.

http://www.earnedmedia.org/cwfa0615.htm

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

"In addition, the autopsy found no traces of morphine in her system at her death, although she had been given two doses in the days before she died. The Schindlers had contended that morphine might have been used to speed their daughter's death."

That strikes me as a little odd. If she were properly examined, why didn't they see ANY trace of morphine?

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Mark Furhman mentioned that oxygen can be cut off without leaving a trace of strangulation in a number of ways.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

The announcement of the autopsy was bungled however. In the announcement, it was 'no known cause of death'. Uups.

[amdgmary]

David Gibbs III, attorney for the Schindler family, told the Witness the autopsy report still leaves America with the question of whether it will return to its historic position that “all life is sacred” and worthy of protection.

“We are still on the turn in the road,” Gibbs said. “Tragically, the medical examiner did not provide anything to deal with the legal and moral issues. Much of what he said we already knew. She was significantly brain injured. He answered some questions but he created many others.”

For instance, Gibbs said the medical examiner referred to times when Terri was given morphine for pain, despite the notion she was a “vegetable” and had no cognizant thoughts. The attorney also said he wondered if therapy would have helped Terri to learn to swallow during the last 12 years, despite Thogmartin’s findings that she could not have swallowed given the “atrophy” of those muscles at the time of the autopsy.

Gibbs said he also believes it is up to Michael Schiavo to step forward with details about what happened in the early morning hours the day Terri collapsed—since he reported on Larry King Live and to the medical examiner that the time of Terri’s collapse was at 4:30 a.m., but said he did not call paramedics until 5:40 a.m.

Read the article at Florida Baptist Witness

[amdgmary]

TEJ has an interesting report on the autopsy report here

[tutstar]

Randall has indicated that he is running. I would like to hear some more from him but that will come as time goes on.

I wish I would have seen Hannity.

[T'wit]

Yes, indeed. Dr. Thogmartin did not find physical evidence of strangulation, but that does not rule it out, as you note. What is he going to find after all this time?

Actually, the autopsy raises more questions than it answers. It is skeptical that Terri suffered trauma (bone scan) and all but completely dismissive of the theory that she was bulimic. (There goes Michael's best alibi AND his malpractice suit!) This brings the focus back to what has always been the critical question:

What caused the anoxia?

Something cut off Terri's oxygen until she suffered cardiac arrest, followed quickly (one presumes) by the brain damage.

A month ago or so, I posted a link to a fascinating study by a prosecutor's office about strangulation as a form of domestic violence. It found that strangulation was far more prevalent in DV than had been realized. It also found that strangulation often leaves no marks or only minor marks, and it is regularly missed in emergency rooms.

Another study that I referred to on a different occasion found that detection of DV by emergency rooms was shockingly low -- only one case in 30, or something on that order.

In Terri's case, the resuscitation efforts were so violent that strangulation marks of any sort could easily have been missed. She was defibbed several times, trach'ed and vented. Who would think anything of marks on her throat?

[blueriver]

Actually, the autopsy raises more questions than it answers.

Yes, one that I would like answered is HOW is it possible for the doctors to have declared her PVS when they did so based on her lack of visual contact. Yet according to the autopsy she was blind. Something does not add up.

[russesjunjee]

I don't care if Terri's brain was the size of a pea. It's WRONG to kill innocent human beings.

I've said all along that this never-ending debate about Terri's condition and how she came to be in her condition was just a smoke screen thrown up by Felos to take people's minds off the real issue....

IT IS WRONG TO MURDER PEOPLE IN THEIR SICK BEDS. The severity or cause of their sickness is of zero consequence.

[T'wit]

As I've said, I don't believe she was completely blind. There is a wealth of testimony about her tracking people or objects (balloons) that would be almost impossible to account for if she had been totally blind. Had that been so, she would have had to be extremely good at tracking sound. Not likely.

Dr. Thogmartin's case, simply put, is that the "visual" area of the brain was gone. Ergo, she was blind. That is a reasonable conclusion but it is not a certainty. There are two exceptions, also reasonable. 1) Individual physiology differs a great deal. What is generally true in neurological science may not be true for the individual. 2) The same science recognizes that injured brains have some capacity to shift functions -- vision, in Terri's case -- to other areas of the brain. This is not yet well understood, but it is well recognized.

I'm not a medic, so if I'm in error about any of the above, maybe some Freepdoc can give us any correction needed.

Whatever the brain function was in her case, Terri's ability to see up to a foot or a foot and a half is, imo, very well documented.