“I know this is morbid, but does anyone know how long a dead body can be maintained in such a manner?”
Have you never heard of Karen Ann Quinlan?
She was brain dead and kept alive on a ventilator.
Back then in the 70’s it was the family trying to let her die by removing the ventilator and the hospital that refused.
She lived for months until the family won the right to have the ventilator removed.
She did not die as expected and live almost a decade more.
She was brain dead and kept alive on a ventilator.
Karen was not brain dead. Her EEG showed slow-wave activity. That's not brain dead. That's brain injured. Jahi shows no cerebral activity whatsoever. None. Nothing. Zip. Nada.
Nonsense. By all accounts she was in a persistent vegetative state. It would help this discussion if you wouldn't conflate the two.
Karen Ann Quinlan was not dead. She was severely brain damaged, much like Terry Schindler. Her brain was fully alive.
A brain dead person has *no* functional brain because the brain is actually dead—no oxygenation, no blood, no energy use, no metabolism of any kind. When removed from a respirator, a brain dead person does not breathe and the heart ceases to beat shortly thereafter.
This little girl, Jahi, has been examined and determined to be brain dead. Although some of the physiological functions of life have been artificially prolonged using the ventilator and many of the tissues remain alive, she is dead. Her soul is in Heaven.
Interesting, don’t you think, since her body didn’t turn to mush or anything like it. This young girl is not dead, she is on a ventilator as was Christopher Reeve until he died and Karen Quinlan for 10 years after the ventilator was removed. The hospital is looking out for their financial interest, period, IMHO.
Young children who are gravely injured - for that matter, adults who are gravely injured - sometimes recover. My Mom, for example, was put on a respirator because she was dying of a massive cerebral hemmorhage (sp). 3 hours later she woke up, noticed my brother had changed his shirt, and was sent home 3 days later alert and oriented. She ended up with no physical and minimal mental affects. Both physicians and nurses said it was a miracle.
This girl may recover some or not at all, but the hospital and freepers aren’t helping the discussion by saying she is dead.
She wasn’t brain dead. She was alive, but in a persistent vegetative state. That is why she was able to live for years after the respirator was removed.