Posted on 11/21/2007 9:47:38 AM PST by Tulsa Ramjet
OKLAHOMA CITY -- What may have been a mistake at a Texas hospital is being called a miracle by the parents of a Frederick man who was critically injured in an all-terrain vehicle accident.
For more than six hours on Monday, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol classified Zack Dunlap as the state's 610th motor vehicle fatality of the year.
Troopers removed Dunlap's name from the list the same day after learning he showed signs of life shortly before his organs were to be harvested for transplant.
Dunlap was hurt about 7:30 p.m. on Saturday while riding his four-wheeler on a Tillman County road less than a mile west of Davidson with a friend. His vehicle hit the rear of Colton Gains' four-wheeler, causing Dunlap's ATV to spin 180 degrees and throwing him off, according to the patrol's report.
Dunlap, 21, was flown to United Regional Healthcare System in Wichita Falls, Texas, where he was placed on life support.
Doctors pronounced him dead at 11:10 a.m. Monday, said trooper Betsy Randolph, a patrol spokeswoman.
However, "He's alive," Randolph said after speaking with hospital officials late Monday.
As a worker was removing tubes from Dunlap's body in preparation for medical personnel to remove his organs, Dunlap reached out and touched a nurse's arm, Randolph said.
(Excerpt) Read more at tulsaworld.com ...
it is a red herring and invalid.
What about the cloned donations? It is inevitable that we are going to eliminate the need for most organ donations. In fact we have eliminated the need for some people to be donor reciepients through treatment.
What about people of faith who have a preclusion of donating but are allowed to recieve? (they literally have to store their own original parts until their demise)
I would suggest you deal with the VULTURE harvesters first. Prevent the living from being declared dead first THEN discuss being self rightous. There are too many stories of the insurance expired being targeted for donations rather than actual death.
Too many people, including a relative of mine, have died waiting for a transplant.
In my opinion you got to be willing to give in order to receive and I am not all that concerned about the reason why someone would not be willing to donate an organ to save a life another human being.
Count me as being Pro Life.
If they’re gonna start choppin’ on me for spare parts before I’ve kicked the bucket I’d just as soon they took things that I don’t know about the what fer. I’d hate to wake up and find that little Willie has a new home.
If your heart has stopped beating, you cannot be an organ donor. Your heart has to be beating and you must be breathing for the organs to be used.
When there is no longer brain activity, a person is considered dead for the purposes of organ donation, although they are likely being kept alive through the use of machines. The article does not say what verification procedures were used to pronounce this boy dead so it is impossible to determine whether it was an error or a miracle.
I know people who work in the medical field, and they say what happens is that when someone is in an automobile accident, if they are unconscious, the market for organs is so lucrative that there is no real attempt to rescusitate the patient. Pressure is placed upon the next of kin to sign the organ donor form and are told that their loved one is “brain dead” and that there is no hope of recovery. Once that form is signed, it doesn’t matter if the person has any hope of recovery or not, because all attempts to save the accident victim’s life is ceased. BTW, organs are not harvested upon the death of a person. They must be harvested while the person is still alive or they are no good. The patient is declared “brain dead”, and the organs are removed.
This is what I suspect happened in this case, but the patient showed signs of life before anything could be removed, thank God.
Many patients could probably recover if it wasn’t for the organ harvesting.
Not checking off "donor" on a license does not mean the person won't donate organs at some point. We just want to ensure hospitals don't jump at the chance to take our organs prematurely, as happened to the young man in this story. I don't check-off "donor" for the same reason I don't have a living will. I don't want hospitals jumping at the chance to pull the plug on me, either.
And a person who checks off "donor" may not have healthy organs to donate.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I have nothing against organ donation. It's the potential of abuse in organ donation that I don't trust.
I wouldn’t if it meant the organs were removed before giving the patient a chance to recover. If someone has to die so I can live, I’ll have my Maker to answer to. The ends don’t justify the means. To me, it is comparable to the embryonic stem cell debate. If I have a disease of condition that could be cured by taking the stem cells from a baby in the embryonic stage, I would just have to die. The same for taking organs from a person who could survive if given the time and chance. My life shouldn’t be more important than another’s.
That’s one way of looking at it. I prefer to think that it’s wisdom. And I expect to have a lot of life ahead before I begin my walk through eternity.
Thank you for the information. I had no idea it was that bad.
Been there and did it.
We have a terrible shortage of organs because of the stupidity of our government. It is illegal for someone to pay for a donated organ to the family of the deceased. Every day we bury perfectly good organs. Every day patients needing these organs die.
About 50% or more of the people waiting for a liver donation die before a liver is available. The idea of the drives license is great. Sign the card to be a donor and you go to the top of the list. Don’t sign it and you are on the bottom of the list.
My brother received half my liver. This was a desperation move as he had waited for 2 years for a donated liver. They would not take mine until he was close to end stage and they knew he probably would not get a donated liver. Unfortunately he did not make it. Six months later he died from complications of infection. If we had the drivers license program he would have gotten a liver while he was stronger and healthier. He might be alive today.
The other thing that is insane about our transplant procedures is that we give the donated livers to the sickest which have the least chance of survival. Those least sick but with a terminal liver disease should be the ones on the top of the list. They have a better chance of survival. The transplant surgeons know this but there is nothing they can do. It is out of their hands.
I encourage each of you to sign that damn license. It is easy to say that you do not believe in this and it is wrong.
Take a look at you wife, sons, daughters, brothers and parents and picture them slowly dying over several years in a most unpleasant fashion. Dying because of a shortage of organs. Think about it!
Your “people who work in the medical field” are telling you stories or you are telling stories yourself.
There are extensive protocols in the treatment of potential organ donors. Brain death is not just an opinion of one doctor. There are medical tests involved, and it is done entirely separately from the transplant process. There is no reason to rush this process, because we have technology to keep someone artificially alive for a long time. The donor card gives the doctors a start on tissue typing, nothing more.
Mistakes can and do happen, even when precautions are taken to avoid them. They do not happen frequently. The idea that doctors are looking for lucrative organ transplants is downright dishonest. Many times organ transplants are done at the expense on the medical facility, not for huge profits.
I wonder if it occurs to you that there are thousands of people who will only live if they receive an organ transplant. Your lies about the process may cost them their lives, while failing to accomplish anything else. I urge you to look into the reality of some of these claims before repeating them.
They must not work on the front lines. And if they’ve seen unethical conduct on the part of any medical professional within their organization, they are duty bound to report it to governing bodies that oversee many aspects of healthcare. I’ve worked in healthcare (frontlines) and in level I trauma centers, and I have never ever seen this occur. And it does matter even after the form is signed because there are significantly indepth processes and procedures in declaring someone a candidate for organ donation, and it is not up to one person. And it appears that the processes and procedures worked prior to harvesting.
And probably not a lot of people will make a “recovery” with a significant injury as in this article. They may survive and be in recovery, but they won’t live as they did before.
See my post 51, you are very correct.
I like the way you think.
Many people have been in a coma, not expected to recover or live that have fully recovered. Including my mother, who was in a coma for 29 days, with “no hope”; she fully recovered and lived another 50 healthy, years. My husbands niece was in a car wreck at 18, and the doctors suggested to her parents that they consider organ donation and remove life support- they didn’t and now she is a very healthy 27. That is what causes the controversy- “experts” truly don’t know that much about the human brain- Doctors really don’t know who might recover and how much. Doctors are only making educated guesses when it comes to brain damage, many people including me are not willing to bet their life on a guess, not even an educated one.
Your Maker's son died so you can live. Should that example not be emulated? Any organ donor in the United States has expressed his or her wish to be a donor, and "no greater love than this," right?
Well said!!!!!!
The point is that “Brain Dead” doesn’t mean what the Doc’s would like us to thing it means.
Instead of saving the life of the injured, the focus has shifted to harvesting your liver so some drunk can live to have another scotch on the rocks.
Please do not believe him. I am a paramedic and deal with this situation frequently. I give you my word that nothing remotely close to Murron’s description can happen. There are numerous safeguards in place to prevent this.
Every hospital/care facility I have ever worked for has been extraordinarily cautious about declaring a patient brain dead. Paramedics resuscitate and transport in all but a very few cases where resuscitation is impossible. (decapitation, etc.)
This is a serious issue and it astounds me that someone would repeat or make up information like this. It is not a perfect process, because humans make mistakes, but there are an amazing amount of protocols which protect against what is being charged. Please do some research before repeating this information.
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