South Carolina Ping
Posted on 11/04/2005 3:24:09 AM PST by 8mmMauser
Family members are investigating what they consider to be suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of a nursing home patient at the center of a life and death tug-of-war reminiscent of the Terri Schiavo tragedy.
Seventy-nine-year-old Jimmy Chambers died in the early morning hours of Oct. 24 after the tracheotomy tubes that deliver oxygen from a ventilator to a hole in his neck became unhooked. Family members were told Chambers, a resident of the Anne Maria Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in North Augusta, S.C., apparently pulled the interlocking tubes apart.
"We're having it investigated. We're just incredulous," Chambers' daughter, Deanna Potter, told WND in reference to her siblings. "The last time I saw dad he was blowing me a kiss. I blew him one and he blew one back."
The retired dispatcher for Holland Motor Express died approximately 10 hours later. His death certificate indicates he died of "natural causes."
"Apparently, suffocation is a 'natural cause' when you're on a ventilator. We're contesting that," said Potter. "He suffocated. He didn't just pass away. He struggled and fought. And I'm just so angry."
Potter estimates it would have taken 10 to 14 minutes for her father, deprived of oxygen, to fall unconscious, and questions why the nursing home staff didn't come to his aid.
"The oxygen-saturation meter and his ventilator both would have had alarms going off. Four-thirty, five o'clock in the morning you'd think someone would hear this," she added. "That's the thing that really bothers me and makes me suspicious."
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1506323/posts?page=233#233
8mm
pingout tomorrow.
Pings to this new thread and warm welcome to the family. If I am leaving someone out on these two pings, please let me know.
May God bless you family members for the incredible suffering you endure.
8mm
bump
Patient wants to live, but old 'living will' mandates death
8mm
Patient's wishes aren't important anymore, spouse trumps your own decision making if you're disabled.
Ten other family members – including four of his five children – and his initial treating physician signed sworn statements that Chambers himself indicated he wanted to stay on the ventilator, receive rehabilitative therapy and live. They say he communicated this by nodding his head "yes" and "no" to questions put to him during a Sept. 8 family meeting witnessed by 13 people in his hospital room.
you have to read the whole article...
Maybe kalintabby and the in-law would want to be pinged also.
Thanks for making the new thread.
I wish this sort of thing didn't happen very often, but I'm afraid it is all too commonplace these days.
When the boomers hit the nursing homes in record numbers this story will be common.
Pinging you to this new thread.
8mm
The presumption seems to be that the patient will want to die instead of living. This is the result of a cultural shift more than anything else. So when a patient says otherwise, he is seen as being irrational.
Twenty years ago, it would have been just the opposite. It was the patient who wanted to die who was seen as being depressed and suicidal. The presumption was that everybody wanted to live.
Just another by-product of the culture of death. Frankly, at this rate, twenty years from now living wills will be obsolete. Incapacitated patients will just be routinely put down, like horses with broken legs. If you don't want that happening to you, I suggest you make your wishes known to all members of your family and write unequivocal letters to each, stating your desires. If you're really lucky, maybe one of them will do the right thing and respect your wishes.
When the boomers hit the nursing homes, and the cost of their care is being borne by the state, death will become downright fashionable. "Right to Die" will morph seamlessly into "Duty to Die" almost overnight.
I am trying to recall the details. Some time weeks earlier we did some looking into the Anne Maria Rehabilitation Center and to their potential role. Such a blizzard of events has unfolded that I have not yet relocated the topic.
Do you have those details?
8mm
Thanks for the ping, I was unaware of this story. This is why I will keep all loved ones out of nursing homes if at all possible. My Mom died at home under my Dad's loving care, my MIL is living at home with my FIL with advanced alzheimers, and I will do whatever I have to to make sure that no one I love is put into the care of strangers. I realize that sometimes there are no other options, however, if these places were reserved for only those cases in which there truely was no family member to care for them, or there were complications that made it impossible to take care of them at home, this trend of actively killing the helpless among us would come to a screeching halt.
And yes, I understand exactly how difficult it is to take care of someone at home. But we do owe our parents and other loved ones this.
susie
Thanks, 8mmMauser.
Damn, just damn!! The mother has lost her children and her husband - all by her own selfishness. Incredible - a family torn apart because the father wanted to live. God bless his children for their unrelentless fight against evil. What a horrific death - being in the care of professionals while gasping for breath and no one hears. I'm sure felos would disagree with me.
Scott is fighting for his life and his wife wants him dead and the courts so far may find in her favor.
North Country Gazette reports an update.
Eliza Thomas, 29, a Polish immigrant who married Jacksonville resident Scott Thomas, 34, had sued First Coast News, which comprises Jacksonville television stations WTLV TV and WJXX TV for reports beginning on May 16, 2005, regarding injuries suffered by Scott which resulted in neurological damage.
She says he fell backwards over the family dog in the kitchen of their home on Sept. 5, 2004, striking his head but doctors for the incapacitated man say that his injuries aren't consistent with such a fall. According to his mother, Scott says that his wife struck him in the head, causing serious head trauma.
Wife Of Brain Injured Jacksonville Man Loses Libel Claim
8mm
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