Terri Schiavo - Won't Someone Help?

The National Ledger ^ | Feb 22, 2005 | L.A. Morris

[AliVeritas]

Sixth Circuit Court Judge George Greer ruled late Monday afternoon that George Felos and Michael Schiavo cannot implement their stated plan to withdraw the gastric feeding tube of Terri Schindler-Schiavo until a hearing is held on Weds, Feb 23 to determine if the stay in effect from Greer's 2000 death order should remain in place while her parents, Mary and Robert Schindler Sr., continue with their legal options in trying to keep her alive.

The Schindlers had hoped to convince the court that starving Terri to death would violate her religious liberties. As a Catholic, the Schindlers contend Terri would not want to have her life ended.

If anyone ever deserved a second chance, it's Terri Schiavo, the central figure in a battle for the rights of the handicapped. She has no idea of the controversy swirling about her, and has been unaware of the fight for her life since she collapsed of a potassium deficiency in 1990. But regardless of the why and how, Terri's collapse starved her brain of oxygen, and she has never been mentally or physically revived past a semi-vegetative state.

[daylate-dollarshort]

I'll give you a hint....

Terri left the hospital and returned home in August 1990. If she returned home, how did she get to the nursing facility???

[DJ MacWoW]

I'll give you a hint...

Terri left the hospital and returned home in August 1990. If she returned home, how did she get to the nursing facility???

It doesn't work that way. Provide a source link or it's an unproven statement.

[Bubbahater]

Let her die in peace.

[DJ MacWoW]

Time line

1990

Feb - Terri Collapses in her home

May - Terri discharged from Humana Hospital in St Petersburg, Florida.

Dec - Terri taken to California for experimental implant

1991

Feb - Terri moved to home with husband.

Jan - Terri moved to Bradenton Mediplex Rehabilitation Center.

Apr - Terri's condition is assessed as improving.

Apr - Terri's husband advised to move her to Gainesville Rehabilitation Center to receive advanced therapy to continue Terri's recovery.

Jul - Terri moved to Sable Palms Nursing Home.

1992

Aug - Terri awarded $250,000 in malpractice settlement.

Nov - Terri awarded $1.4 million in malpractice trial.

Nov - Michael Schiavo awarded $600,000 in malpractice trial.

1993

Feb - Michael Schiavo denies recommended rehabilitation treatment.

Feb - Schiavo and Terri's parents have falling out regarding lack of therapy for Terri

Feb - Schiavo withholds medical information from Terri's parents.

Feb - Schiavo posts Do not Resuscitate order in Terri's medical chart

Jun - Schiavo threatens Schindler family with lawsuit.

Aug - Schiavo orders medical staff not to treat Terri for potentially fatal infection.

Sep - Bob and Mary Schindler petition courts to remove Schiavo as Terri's guardian.

Nov - Schiavo admits in deposition that he knew withholding treatment of infection could result in Terri's death.

[Halls]

Go away!! She will not die in peace, she will die starving to death! there is nothing peaceful about that!

[DJ MacWoW]

Let her die in peace.

Starving to death is peaceful? Think it'll replace lethal injection? Nah. The Constitution says no cruel or unusual punishment for murderers.

[freepertoo]

If she was a vegetable her parents might agree with you...but she's not.

[freepertoo]

(((Let her die in peace.)))

You first...she's as healthy as you are.

[daylate-dollarshort]

That's a good example of the type of misrepresentations by the Terri fanatics, posting an incomplete timelime. Relevant part:

KEY EVENTS IN THE CASE OF THERESA MARIE SCHIAVO

Steven Haidar, Dartmouth College/University of Miami
Kathy Cerminara, Nova Southeastern University, Shepard
Broad Law Center

June 30, 1990
Terri Schiavo is transferred to Bayfront Hospital for further rehabilitation efforts.

September 1990
Terri Schiavo’s family brings her home, but three weeks later they return her to the College Park facility because the family is “overwhelmed by Terri’s care needs.”

November 1990
Michael Schiavo takes Terri Schiavo to California for experimental “brain stimulator” treatment, an experimental “thalamic stimulator implant” in her brain.

January 1991
The Schiavos return to Florida; Terri Schiavo is moved to the Mediplex Rehabilitation Center in Brandon where she receives 24-hour care.

http://www.miami.edu/ethics2/schiavo/timeline.htm

[DJ MacWoW]

That may be the correct timeline. If it is, does that mean that a woman who sleeps and wakes up should be starved? I'm against euthanasia. There are tests that should be performed and haven't been or this will never be over for anyone.

"In light of the miraculous awakening of Miss Sarah Scantlin in Kansas and the success of the new brainwave test reported in the New York Times this week, my daughter deserves to have this test before she is starved to death by judicial decree," said Terri’s father, Bob Schindler, in a written statement issued Feb. 11.

The New York Times article said this new brainwave test could “have consequences for legal cases in which parties dispute the mental state of an unresponsive patient.”

Limk here: Terri Schiavo’s family encouraged after Kansas woman wakes from 20-year coma

[maine-iac7]

Perhaps you would be so kind as to name this individual??

but of course - here ya go:

" Since 22 September 1984, Sara Scantlin had never uttered a word, her brain so badly damaged in the accident that experts said she would spend the rest of her life in her own silent world...."

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=168322005

there are others

[daylate-dollarshort]

The tests have been performed ad nauseum. As I stated above, Scantlin was never diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state. The difference is huge. A persistent vegetative state is one in which the brain is completely inactive with the exception of the brain stem. As someone in a deep coma, Ms. Scantlin's higher brain, (cerebral cortex) was functioning all the while. It doesn't happen often, but people sometimes wake up after many years of being in coma.

The Courts have determined that Teri is in a "persistent vegetative state" not coma or even deep coma. It is universally held in medicine that it is impossible to regain consciousness from a persistent vegetative state. In Terri's case the evidence of the destruction of her cerebral cortex has been established beyond any and all doubt.

Unfortunately, the "new brainwave test" can't measure activity in a cerebral cortex that is obviously no longer in existence.

[daylate-dollarshort]

"...the other woman that recently came out of the same type 'coma' after 20 years - and is now making the rounds to tell her story of how she could understand everything but not speak - and how painful it was when they once took her feeding tubes out for several days - but she refused to die -"

and........

"Since 22 September 1984, Sara Scantlin had never uttered a word, her brain so badly damaged in the accident that experts said she would spend the rest of her life in her own silent world...."

There's an old saying:

I was born at night.....but NOT LAST NIGHT"

Sara Scantlin did not come out of the "same type of coma" as Terri Schiavo. Ms. Scantlin was in a deep coma, but a coma nonetheless. Terri Schiavo is in a "persistent vegetative state". Again I will point out- not that you can understand- there is a huge difference.

Further, are you trying to buffalo me or what?? You said she is "making the rounds to tell her story of how she could understand everything but not speak". Where has she appeared?? Where did she make "the rounds" to? She's still in the hospital and hasn't "made the rounds" anywhere except maybe her room, and then only with the assistance of her attendants.

And what's this about "how painful it was when they once took her feeding tubes out for several days - but she refused to die"? Can't keep your patients straight?

There goes your credibility.........

[Trinity_Tx]

There's also this I just found from Deposition of Michael Schiavo Nov. 19, 1993:

(Page 70)

9 Q Were there discussions between yourself and the

10 Schindler's about using the money, if you received any

11 money from the lawsuit, to either rent or purchase a house

12 where Terry would actually live with her parents?

13 A There was discussions about that. That was back

14 in the Roland Lamb days when, you know, the 15, 20 million

15 dollars was there. and it kind of like, faded away.

16 When it came up again, my father-in-law wanted to

17 purchase a house with a separate apartment for Terry, so

18 the nurses would have a separate room for the nurses to go

19 in.

20 MR. NILSSON: Objection, unless the witness has

21 finished his answer.

22 BY MR. SHEEHAN:

23 Q Were you finished?

24 A Yeah.

25 Q What was your thoughts about that, about that


(Page 71)


1 arrangement, about Terry living at home with her mother

2 and father?

3 A I wasn't crazy about that. We've had Terry home

4 before, and I took care of her. My father-in-law would

5 tell me all the time that this isn't working out because

6 your mother-in-law is getting upset. She doesn't like to

7 be with Terry at home. She needs to be with professional

8 people.

---

The entire deposition is an interesting read. I hadn't seen it before.

It also says he only got 300k dollars? Am I reading that right? That 70% of *all* the settlement money was deducted from the award because it was 70% Terri's fault (because of her bulimia) ?

And stuff about how he had fusses with nurses over not taking good enough care of her when she was choking and had a fever, and how he wanted to stay at a particular nursing home because it clean, bright, and cheerful.

(It's stuff like this that I don't understand why MS doesn't have published himself. /bad sentence)

[daylate-dollarshort]

The deposition you stumbled across has obviously been around for years but most of the Schindler supporters have a strange inability to either see it or maybe, understand its contentents. Thanks for finding it and posting it here. It backs up what I posted earlier about the Shindler's having failed at taking care of Terri at home.

There is further information in one of the depositions that the Schlinders wanted a share of the malpractice settlement and were angry that they didn't receive it.

[Chong]

"It is JUST A SHELL lying there."

The statement of yours above alone tells me that you've not been following Terri's story. You are one of those who post a comment without reading the article, aren't ya?

Catholics do NOT approve suicide by any means, neither do the Presbyterians (I am one). It'd be interesting to find out where you get your "knowledge" about Catholic approved suicide.

[MarMema]

Actually she would die of dehydration, not starvation.
It's a gruesome, horrible, slow death, which is why it is against the law to do it to your dog or horse.

[Lovergirl]

BBBBBBBBBBBBSSSSSSSSSSS

[MarMema]

Btw, I am really glad to read that you won't be upset when the state begins telling more and more competent people that it is time for them to die

The question is not whether the suffering and dying person's life should be terminated; the question is what kind of nation will we become if they are. Their physical death is preceded only by our moral death.

Terri may be suffering, though she is not dying. A lot of people suffer every day.

Would you advocate then, the euthanasia of all people whom you feel are simply a shell? Just guessing, but based on what you have expressed here, er, "We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat", in that case.