Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
Quote:
Schiavo Autopsy Shows Massive Brain Damage
By MITCH STACY, Associated Press Writer
LARGO, Fla. - An autopsy on Terri Schiavo backed her husband's contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state, finding that she had massive and irreversible brain damage and was blind, the medical examiner's office said Wednesday. It also found no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused.
But what caused her collapse 15 years earlier remained a mystery. The autopsy and post-mortem investigation found no proof that she had an eating disorder, as was suspected at the time, Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Jon Thogmartin said.
Autopsy results on the 41-year-old brain-damaged woman were made public Wednesday, more than two months after her death March 31 ended a right-to-die battle between her husband and parents that engulfed the courts, Congress and the White House and divided the country.
She died from dehydration, Thogmartin said. He said she did not appear to have suffered a heart attack and there was no evidence that she was given harmful drugs or other substances prior to her death.
He said that after her feeding tube was removed, she would not have been able to eat or drink if she had been given food by mouth, as her parents' requested.
"Removal of her feeding tube would have resulted in her death whether she was fed or hydrated by mouth or not," Thogmartin told reporters.
He also said she was blind, because the "vision centers of her brain were dead," and that her brain was about half of its expected size when she died 13 days following the feeding tube's removal.
Michael Schiavo said his wife never would have wanted to be kept alive in what court-appointed doctors concluded was a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery. The Schindlers, however, doubted she had any such end-of-life wishes and disputed that she was in a vegetative state.
The medical examiner's conclusions countered a videotape released by the Schindlers of Terri Schiavo in her hospice bed. The video showed Schiavo appearing to turn toward her mother's voice and smile, moaning and laughing. Her head moved up and down and she seemed to follow the progress of a brightly colored Mickey Mouse balloon.
They believed her condition could improve with therapy.
However, doctors said her reactions were automatic responses and not evidence of thought or consciousness, and Thogmartin's report went farther.
"The brain weighed 615 grams, roughly half of the expected weight of a human brain," he said. "This damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
Oh, I didn't know Electromagnetic's thread was about Schaivo. Please lock.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
Man in Black wrote:
How can a heart-transplant surgeon be so idiotic?
He's not idiot. He's evil.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
mikef wrote:
B wrote:
Oh, I didn't know Electromagnetic's thread was about Schaivo. Please lock.
i like this one better.
Or merge. Whatever.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
towelie wrote:
B wrote:
Man in Black wrote:
How can a heart-transplant surgeon be so idiotic?
He's not idiot. He's the Republican front-runner for president in 2008.
*remembers*
*digs out eyeball with a spoon*
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
OMG I am so damn sick of this story. Make it stop.
let her be.
_________________ cirlces they grow and they swallow people whole half their lives they say goodnight to wives they'll never know got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul and so it goes
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