13 Year old gir declared brain dead has now officially died

[Pea-n-Me]

I wish the media would stop with the brain dead girl dies. That just helps with the nonsense.
Why not say"brain dead girl's body taken off machines?

I agree, it's been confusing. She was never declared "alive" again legally.

Interesting, too, they'd do "surgery" on a dead person, but as a pp pointed out, NJ's laws are unique.

This thread got bumped up and I read about 85% of it (skipped through some pages from early to mid 2014).

Organ donation is a very personal decision. I am an organ donor on my DL my husband is not. It doesn't mean we wouldn't ever donate his organs but the first point of permission of a DL is not granted for him. I think it's a wonderful beautiful thing to do to donate your organs but I will not judge someone who opts not to. I don't know if the parents would have considered donation if they truly thought she was dead at that point so I can't say 'all the children she could have saved'. Organ donation is a choice not an obligation.

As for carrying on for years: My heart breaks for multiple reasons. The sliver of hope and conviction that she was alive that they must have felt, combined with feeling incredible sick thinking about decomp, to concerns over if they were truly in it for their own hearts or for more base things like money world-wide sympathy.

All these cases over the years just makes me never ever want to be in that position they've been in. It's a thought I've had though, as I am the wife what will my mother-in-law or my father-in-law think of me and any choice I make, what will I think of myself, and what will my kids think when the time comes to have them, what will my family think of me should I be in that position for my husband and apply that same logic to my kids..gah seriously

All that being said case by case for me and how I feel in these situations and for this one in particular..my wish is that they had let her go much earlier on.

To the bolded. I think, in that situation, what you have to keep at the forefront of your mind is what the donor wants, not necessarily what all those other people want. That's why it's important to have these conversations from time to time with our loved ones who we might someday have that responsibility for, so that we can act with relative confidence should a difficult situation like that arise.

 

[disneychrista]

I agree, it's been confusing. She was never declared "alive" again legally.
.

One article I read said that a doctor who reviewed recordings of her declared her technically alive or something like that.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

One article I read said that a doctor who reviewed recordings of her declared her technically alive or something like that.

If it's the article I'm thinking about, which I want to say we discussed here earlier, I believe his thinking was outside the mainstream. The family, if I recall, had petitioned the judge in the case to reverse the ruling of brain death, and the judge refused, based on testimony of medical experts.

 

[HillPete]

You know, information regardless, I find it dumbfounding that a highly charged thread could top 100 pages and NOT be locked.

The limit on the boards is 250 pages

 

[mom2rtk]

The limit on the boards is 250 pages

The limit used to be 250 pages. That hasn't been the case since they migrated to a new site in 2015. Many are much longer than that now.

 

[ronandannette]

If it's the article I'm thinking about, which I want to say we discussed here earlier, I believe his thinking was outside the mainstream. The family, if I recall, had petitioned the judge in the case to reverse the ruling of brain death, and the judge refused, based on testimony of medical experts.

It's in the past and irrelevant now but I've always wondered about some of the medical information that was provided at the time - particularly about how her gut would start to slough and be unable to absorb nutrients from the feeding tube and her organs would liquify. I studied up on it a little at the time but of course without any medical knowledge whatsoever I wouldn't presume to really understand. If that was true, how has "the body" (please forgive me - I really don't know how else to phrase it) been sustained all these years? In your expertise, can you shed any light?

 

[Julie's Haircut]

Glad that the twisted family will no longer be able to torture the poor kid. And use Other People's Money to do it.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

To the bolded. I think, in that situation, what you have to keep at the forefront of your mind is what the donor wants, not necessarily what all those other people want. That's why it's important to have these conversations from time to time with our loved ones who we might someday have that responsibility for, so that we can act with relative confidence should a difficult situation like that arise.

Yes I agree with you but I was more meaning what would I do should my husband had been in the bed versus the girl and how my decision at that time would impact those around me and what they would think of me.

 

[MamaBelle4]

The limit on the boards is 250 pages

I think PP meant "not locked by mods due to dissension into name calling, religious posts/political posts, etc".

 

[bcla]

I think PP meant "not locked by mods due to dissension into name calling, religious posts/political posts, etc".

It’s been pretty civil. It’s also been where people with more to add just searched for the topic and added without starting a new topic.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

It's in the past and irrelevant now but I've always wondered about some of the medical information that was provided at the time - particularly about how her gut would start to slough and be unable to absorb nutrients from the feeding tube and her organs would liquify. I studied up on it a little at the time but of course without any medical knowledge whatsoever I wouldn't presume to really understand. If that was true, how has "the body" (please forgive me - I really don't know how else to phrase it) been sustained all these years? In your expertise, can you shed any light?

I was not one of those people who made those claims, as personally, it's not something I'm really familiar with. But my guess is that is exactly what eventually happened, seeing as they said she was having "surgery" on her gut. It was probably just something that slowly deteriorated, as opposed to happening directly and all at once. I'm doubtful we'll ever know the real story.

 

[kimblebee]

I clicked on the latest link and followed the path to some pictures of her. Not to be disrespectful but she didn’t look like a girl who was in a coma or who was alive and just ‘sleeping’, she looked like a dead body.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

I clicked on the latest link and followed the path to some pictures of her. Not to be disrespectful but she didn’t look like a girl who was in a coma or who was alive and just ‘sleeping’, she looked like a dead body.

And they worked hard at keeping her looking good - they bathed her, did her hair and nails, dressed her up in nice clothing, put on a little makeup, she smelled good, etc. They actually devoted their lives to it. So she looked as good as a body could look. Unlike most people who've passed.

 

[ronandannette]

And they worked hard at keeping her looking good - they bathed her, did her hair and nails, dressed her up in nice clothing, put on a little makeup, she smelled good, etc. They actually devoted their lives to it. So she looked as good as a body could look. Unlike most people who've passed.

Dead bodies are something I do have a little bit of expertise with and while I certainly wouldn't ever call it "living" either philosophically or in practical terms, there is no way an actual corpse could be sustained in anything near that condition for even a weeks, let alone 5 years. Not to be gruesome, but depending on the climate and ambient air conditions, either dehydration (mummification) or putrification would occur in all but the most rigorously refrigerated or chemically preserved remains and even freezing solid wouldn't keep a corpse pristine for 5 years because, well, freezer-burn. This entire case pretty much defies the imagination on a lot of levels.

FTR, if anybody is thinking of Eva Peron or someone else who has been "wax embalmed" basically what you're looking at is a wax model of the person encapsulating a squishy, unfathomably disgusting centre of goo. OTOH, now that I'm thinking about it, a process called "plastination" does do the trick - think Body Worlds - but that's not what took place here.

 

[bcla]

If it's the article I'm thinking about, which I want to say we discussed here earlier, I believe his thinking was outside the mainstream. The family, if I recall, had petitioned the judge in the case to reverse the ruling of brain death, and the judge refused, based on testimony of medical experts.

Alan Shewmon is a noted opponent of the current medical definition of "brain death".

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22724128
Abstract
D. Alan Shewmon has advanced a well-documented challenge to the widely accepted total brain death criterion for death of the human being. We show that Shewmon’s argument against this criterion is unsound, though he does refute the standard argument for that criterion. We advance a distinct argument for the total brain death criterion and answer likely objections. Since human beings are rational animals--sentient organisms of a specific type--the loss of the radical capacity for sentience (the capacity to sense or to develop the capacity to sense) involves a substantial change, the passing away of the human organism. In human beings total brain death involves the complete loss of the radical capacity for sentience, and so in human beings total brain death is death.​

 

[bcla]

Dead bodies are something I do have a little bit of expertise with and while I certainly wouldn't ever call it "living" either philosophically or in practical terms, there is no way an actual corpse could be sustained in anything near that condition for even a weeks, let alone 5 years. Not to be gruesome, but depending on the climate and ambient air conditions, either dehydration (mummification) or putrification would occur in all but the most rigorously refrigerated or chemically preserved remains and even freezing solid wouldn't keep a corpse pristine for 5 years because, well, freezer-burn. This entire case pretty much defies the imagination on a lot of levels.

FTR, if anybody is thinking of Eva Peron or someone else who has been "wax embalmed" basically what you're looking at is a wax model of the person encapsulating a squishy, unfathomably disgusting centre of goo. OTOH, now that I'm thinking about it, a process called "plastination" does do the trick - think Body Worlds - but that's not what took place here.

They were keeping the body functioning to some degree. However, living people have a working brain stem that regulates hormonal balance. Even just the brain stem with the rest of the brain liquified is enough, as there have been many cases of patients in a persistent vegetative state for decades.

They needed a ventilator and lots of hormones. It was a lot of work and expense (I heard $150,000 per week paid by the taxpayer) to keep the body functioning and fending off the deterioration that was clearly happening. There was clearly still living tissue, but I don't know anyone who would think of something like a donate organ as "being alive" like a person is alive. There was no doubt that she was dead.

 

[ronandannette]

They were keeping the body functioning to some degree. However, living people have a working brain stem that regulates hormonal balance. Even just the brain stem with the rest of the brain liquified is enough, as there have been many cases of patients in a persistent vegetative state for decades.

They needed a ventilator and lots of hormones. It was a lot of work and expense (I heard $150,000 per week paid by the taxpayer) to keep the body functioning and fending off the deterioration that was clearly happening. There was clearly still living tissue, but I don't know anyone who would think of something like a donate organ as "being alive" like a person is alive. There was no doubt that she was dead.

I've heard many, many people refer to their loved ones as "living on" through their organ donations but I'm pretty sure it's a comforting, emotional turn-of-phrase more than them really thinking the essence of that person still remains.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Dead bodies are something I do have a little bit of expertise with and while I certainly wouldn't ever call it "living" either philosophically or in practical terms, there is no way an actual corpse could be sustained in anything near that condition for even a weeks, let alone 5 years. Not to be gruesome, but depending on the climate and ambient air conditions, either dehydration (mummification) or putrification would occur in all but the most rigorously refrigerated or chemically preserved remains and even freezing solid wouldn't keep a corpse pristine for 5 years because, well, freezer-burn. This entire case pretty much defies the imagination on a lot of levels.

FTR, if anybody is thinking of Eva Peron or someone else who has been "wax embalmed" basically what you're looking at is a wax model of the person encapsulating a squishy, unfathomably disgusting centre of goo. OTOH, now that I'm thinking about it, a process called "plastination" does do the trick - think Body Worlds - but that's not what took place here.

She was brain dead. Some of the rest of her body had some functionality left, with support - for a while.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

I've heard many, many people refer to their loved ones as "living on" through their organ donations but I'm pretty sure it's a comforting, emotional turn-of-phrase more than them really thinking the essence of that person still remains.

Not true, necessarily. I work with organ recipients. There is a often a spritual component to both donating, and receiving, an organ. It's hard to understand unless you're affected by it. But I've seen a lot of really amazing things, and listened to a lot of heartfelt stories. A bond often forms between donor families and recipients because they believe the essence still remains. That's often why people donate, in fact - it's a chance for their loved one, at least in part, to "live on".

 

[bcla]

She was brain dead. Some of the rest of her body had some functionality left, with support - for a while.

That support was extraordinary though. If they really though she didn’t suffer brain death, then they could have stopped all the hormones and let her brain do it.