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Carina Melchior
Posted on 11/16/2012 2:06:14 PM PST by NYer
AARHUS, Denmark — Carina Melchior is a 20-year-old Danish woman who was plunged in the middle of controversy by two close encounters with death — the first in car crash last year that put her in a coma; the second in a hospital, where doctors persuaded her parents to donate her organs and shut off her life support.
But Carina recovered, and she now is at the center of a storm of questions about the criteria for brain death, over-aggressive transplant agencies and the commodification of the human body.
What might have been played out quietly in an obscure Danish civil-law courtroom became a national cause celebre with the airing early in October of a TV documentary called Pigen Der Ikke Ville Do (The Girl Who Refused to Die) that was viewed by 1.7 million people.
The documentary follows the Melchior family as they learn of the seriousness of Carina’s injuries, are told she cannot recover because her brain is dead, and are asked to donate her organs to people who need them.
Carina’s father, Kim Melchior, asks if there is any chance of “a small miracle anywhere.” None, the medical staff at Aarhus University Hospital reply.
But a few days after being taken off her respirator, while hospital attendants are waiting for her body to shut down, Carina began to move her legs and open her eyes.
The documentary shows her awake and expressing confidence in her ability to recover, get her own apartment, begin work and resume her pastime of horse jumping.
snip
The hospital administration reacted with a mixture of embarrassment at their mistake and pleasure at the girl’s recovery.
“We are overjoyed that the young woman has survived and that she is moving on after the accident,” said chief medical officer Claus Thomsen.
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
Ping!
Prayerss up for a complete recovery.
/johnny
I am surprised they didn’t go to court and demand her organs anyway.
yep.
A few days ago someone posted that 1/5th of those said to be “vegetables” recover... wow... how many never had the chance to recover?
That must have been quite a sight to see.
Here’s another, purportedly “brain dead”, comatose victim, with a much better outcome.
I guess it would depend on your definition of “recover.”
I heard Jimmy Akin on Catholic Answers say that that it’s looking like “brain death” was invented to make organ harvesting possible.
I guess it would depend on your definition of “recover.”
It is like survival rates with esoteric cancers. I have watched more than one mother’s child become a science experiment for the research center. Survival just means breathing.
They reserve it for their victims.
I think the standard of “brain death” is deeply flawed, because it is known that when injured, the body secretes a large amount of a normally occurring chemical called GABA, that is *supposed* to shut down the injured part of the brain so that it can heal.
But when some people get a big release of GABA, it sensitizes all of their brain to the chemical, so it will stay shut down even with normal levels, and if there is no damage.
A sensitivity to GABA is now known to be responsible for many cases of “persistent coma”.
But far too little is known about brain trauma and awareness to assume that just because a brain isn’t currently working like a normal brain, it is “dead”.
I may just be “sleeping”.
Someone should book her to speak to out lame GOP. Maybe they’d decide to wthu.
Good opportunity to remind people that they cannot harvest organs from the dead, only from the living. Which is why they invented the nebulous notion of “brain death”, so they could convince families to let them butcher their still-living loved ones and parcel out their organs for profit.
Well, that’s why they want to pull the plug so fast. The doctors really don’t want to give them a chance to recover, it would be bad for business.
Interesting how when some are removed from life support, they recover. Perhaps the body healed itself but was letting the machines continue to do the work. It may be that when taken off the machines, the body is forced to work on it’s own. Could also be that the patients hear and process the discussion of killing them which makes them fight to come back.
I remember a theory about the temperature of the ar they breathe from life support machines might be keeping them in a coma longer.
bump
"Ohhhhh.. what are you doing? Were you pulling the plug on me!"
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