Jahi’s family wants her declared 'alive again’

[TJL]

My MIL died today at 2:43 pm EDT. Today was her 85th birthday and she lived a great life. Her decline was sudden and rapid as only a week ago she was driving her car and shopping. I was at her bedside and watched her take her last breath, and it was a peaceful passing. We made sure she had pain relief and oxygen support.

Sure, we could have instituted CPR, IVs, cardiac meds, ventilation. We chose not to and let her die with dignity and grace. How selfish would we have been to inflict the horrors of active life support, which are indeed rough. There comes a time to just let go.

Much sympathy to you. I had to go through the same thing with my mother when she died of brain cancer in hospice. You talking about the last breath and seeing the peacefulness of it just brought back those very same experiences on my end. And you're right, it is very peaceful when everyone can accept that process.

 

[lawstudent]

Sad that this is still going on. I think the public needs to stay out of it so they can come to terms with reality without having to feel like they owe an explanation. I know they've invited the public into it, so it's impossible, but the exterior debate is a distraction from the personal situation that they need to confront. Can understand why they want a distraction, but it's just sad all around. I believe it will be resolved soon, and I hope they have come to terms with it by that time.

 

[MyBelle]

Some times religious beliefs have a crippling effect upon medicine and society. Religious beliefs helped spread the deadly Ebola virus because people insist upon hand washing victims of the deadly disease. Should we ignore that and allow them to carry out their religious rituals?

Religious beliefs do not trump everything every time. Jahi has rights to. imo

The Judge didn't agree with you and allowed Jahi's mother to move her to a facility. His decision is final and must be accepted. Neither society or medicine have been crippled by his decision.

America has laws which recognize the separation of church and state. We certainly don't dictate the religious practices in foreign countries.

JMO

 

[MyBelle]

My MIL died today at 2:43 pm EDT. Today was her 85th birthday and she lived a great life. Her decline was sudden and rapid as only a week ago she was driving her car and shopping. I was at her bedside and watched her take her last breath, and it was a peaceful passing. We made sure she had pain relief and oxygen support.

Sure, we could have instituted CPR, IVs, cardiac meds, ventilation. We chose not to and let her die with dignity and grace. How selfish would we have been to inflict the horrors of active life support, which are indeed rough. There comes a time to just let go.

Which is why hospitals require signed DNRs. Sorry for your loss.

 

[ontheclock]

Can someone find for me any court ruling by "a Judge" stating that Jahi is not dead until the mother believes it to be true? I've looked and looked, and cannot find anything to this effect. Any help would be appreciated. This would be pretty groundbreaking, as the death certificate would not exist if a Judge made such a ruling. Thanks in advance.

That will never happen, imo, too much of a slippery slope. For every time there is a season.

 

[SwampMama]

The Judge didn't agree with you and allowed Jahi's mother to move her to a facility. His decision is final and must be accepted. Neither society or medicine have been crippled by his decision.

America has laws which recognize the separation of church and state. We certainly don't dictate the religious practices in foreign countries.

JMO

It seems that Jahi's family is at odds with the judges decision, seeing as they are trying to go back to court to declare her "undead".

 

[MNSuz]

My MIL died today at 2:43 pm EDT. Today was her 85th birthday and she lived a great life. Her decline was sudden and rapid as only a week ago she was driving her car and shopping. I was at her bedside and watched her take her last breath, and it was a peaceful passing. We made sure she had pain relief and oxygen support.

Sure, we could have instituted CPR, IVs, cardiac meds, ventilation. We chose not to and let her die with dignity and grace. How selfish would we have been to inflict the horrors of active life support, which are indeed rough. There comes a time to just let go.

Peace to you and your family. My Dad died a month ago after seven weeks in hospice. In spite of a DNR, and clearly shared wishes, my brother was in denial and tried to inflict care. We were successful in thwarting his efforts, but you can imagine the contention and horrible accusations. What a blessing to go quickly and without pain.

 

[MyBelle]

But why wasn't her heart stopping that time considered her death?

Because she was not declared brain dead at that point, the Hospital had to try CPR. If it had been unsuccessful, death by cessation of heart/lungs would have been declared and we wouldn't be discussing it.

JMO

 

[MyBelle]

Peace to you and your family. My Dad died a month ago after seven weeks in hospice. In spite of a DNR, and clearly shared wishes, my brother was in denial and tried to inflict care. We were successful in thwarting his efforts, but you can imagine the contention and horrible accusations. What a blessing to go quickly and without pain.

My sympathy for your loss.

 

[Nore]

My husband was not a candidate for organ donor at the time we were told he was brain dead. They told us he was brain dead two days before he was taken off the vent. The time of death was called when his heart stopped after the vent was shut off. That was over ten years ago. I assumed that was how it was done when the patient is not an organ donor. Maybe it isn't.

I don't think that it is that uncommon for families to object to the vent being removed.

Jahi's surgery and subsequent brain death occurred on December 9, 2013. She was declared dead on the 12th. How long does it take to do the testing to confirm brain death?

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Hi Lippy, your situation sounds somewhat like mine. My husband 's heart stopped on Wednesday about .1:30 am.. did cpr and all, started again.They took him to ICU. They did two ct scans, two MRI's , EEG's..he was without a heart beat around 5 minutes .Tests were done two separate times. What else they did I don't know but he was declared brain dead. He had a massive aneurysm. My granddaughter and I took him off ventilator
at 1 :22pm.on Thursday. Second set of tests done when we were there, about took about 1~2 hrs. at most. Yes his time of death when taken off vent, I told my Doctor I felt he had really passed early am. on WEdnesday. He agreed but hospital always puts time at removal of vent..so about the same as your situation. His heart only beat 1 1/2 times with vent removal. I wish the family of Jahi would realize this and give the child peace.

 

[Cubby]

Sad that this is still going on. I think the public needs to stay out of it so they can come to terms with reality without having to feel like they owe an explanation. I know they've invited the public into it, so it's impossible, but the exterior debate is a distraction from the personal situation that they need to confront. Can understand why they want a distraction, but it's just sad all around. I believe it will be resolved soon, and I hope they have come to terms with it by that time.

I agree, however I think the attorneys and those using this tragic situation to promote their religious/political agenda's should stay out of it. The media should ignore them. Only then will this situation become private.

 

[lawstudent]

I agree, however I think the attorneys and those using this tragic situation to promote their religious/political agenda's should stay out of it. The media should ignore them. Only then will this situation become private.

I agree, except for the attorneys. They have a job to do and some of these legal issues need to be worked out to settle some of this stuff. I don't have a problem with them taking the case. If the family can't get an attorney who will help them, it will continue their feeling of injustice and persecution and cause them to cling to their viewpoint. And it's possible that their attorney will eventually help them understand the situation - some are very helpful, some are not.

Death is not declared when someone's heart stops - people's hearts stop every day and many are revived. There's a certain amount of time that has to pass before the person is actually dead. With DNR patients, they may call death at the time the heart stops, but it really isn't that black and white.

 

[forthelost]

Because she was not declared brain dead at that point, the Hospital had to try CPR. If it had been unsuccessful, death by cessation of heart/lungs would have been declared and we wouldn't be discussing it.

JMO

So cardiac arrest is only death "sometimes?" If someone thinks brain death isn't death and the heart stopping is death, why does it matter if she was "brain dead" at that point in time?

 

[TJL]

I agree, except for the attorneys. They have a job to do and some of these legal issues need to be worked out to settle some of this stuff. I don't have a problem with them taking the case. If the family can't get an attorney who will help them, it will continue their feeling of injustice and persecution and cause them to cling to their viewpoint. And it's possible that their attorney will eventually help them understand the situation - some are very helpful, some are not.

Death is not declared when someone's heart stops - people's hearts stop every day and many are revived. There's a certain amount of time that has to pass before the person is actually dead. With DNR patients, they may call death at the time the heart stops, but it really isn't that black and white.

I agree that attorneys have a job to do which can - and usually is - very beneficial to the families they are working for. In this particular case, however, we have an attorney who has a self-proclaimed agenda who is using this case to further their career ambitions. That creates a bad mixture when the family needs rational experts to help them understand and come to terms with their loss, but instead get someone who only complicates and prolongs their grief. Or put another way: the family is already having difficulty trusting objective professionals because they feel they've been wronged in some way. An attorney who brings in "fringe experts" who fill their heads with the idea that the deceased child isn't really deceased, just reinforces the irrational beliefs. And no, I'm not saying religious beliefs are irrational - we're all entitled to believe in whatever we want if that's what makes us happy. But taking advantage of someone's religious beliefs to further a professional agenda or ambitions is not okay.

People like Dr. Byrne (who published an opinion in December last year that Jahi isn't really dead, without having actually ever seen or examined the body)

Or Dr. Machado who is trying really hard to cloud and obscure the definition of brain death (who also works for IBRF)

Or DeFina (CEO of IBRF) who claims to be able to reverse brain death.

Or Fellus (another IBRF employee)...

Or the psychologist who is licensed to perform EEG's on autistic children...NOT EEG's to confirm or rule out BD...

And all the others. Each has a particular agenda with professional ambitions they are seeking to extend and further through the use of Jahi's body.

 

[MyBelle]

Absolutely true. The attorneys do have a job to do. The family seems to have found an attorney as well as a number of medical experts who want these legal issues addressed.

 

[Curiosum]

Well that's the impression given at hospitals because Under normal circumstances, when a brain dead patient is on life support they disconnect the vent, wait for the heart to stop beating, then call the time of death and only then does the morgue come for the patient. I'm not opposed to doing things that way and I suppose it is just a courtesy to the family but it gives people the impression that death doesn't occur until the body is dead.
I think that when a person is declared brain dead and all the tests have been done to validate the death, the time of death should be called and noted. Instead they discuss with the family about when to disconnect the ventilator and that is just asking for trouble. They could be typing up a death certificate while the family is thinking about it.
Does that sound too harsh?

Just to clarify, if I'm filling out the death certificate then the time of death is the time of brain death determination. The heart may continue beating beyond that because we don't necessarily disconnect the patient from the ventilator for various reasons (including allowing the family time to say goodbye, preservation of organs if the patient is a possible or known donor candidate etc) but brain dead is dead so the time of death is the time of that determination.

Now, in the case of PVS patients where families (or perhaps in some cases courts) decide to withdraw support then there is a terminal wean and the time of death is reflected by the time when the heart stops beating.

 

[Donjeta]

JMO but I'm not convinced this case ultimately has anything to do with the family's religious rights to believe that braindead people are not dead until cardiac death and that life support measures should be continued until God turns the heart off.

That's just one of the arguments Dolan and Byrne et al. pulled out of their hat to argue in court. The family may or may not believe so but it seems to be rather irrelevant to their views of Jahi's situation as they're not arguing that life support should be continued despite her brain death, they're arguing that she is not brain dead.

 

[lawstudent]

JMO but I'm not convinced this case ultimately has anything to do with the family's religious rights to believe that braindead people are not dead until cardiac death and that life support measures should be continued until God turns the heart off.

That's just one of the arguments Dolan and Byrne et al. pulled out of their hat to argue in court. The family may or may not believe so but it seems to be rather irrelevant to their views of Jahi's situation as they're not arguing that life support should be continued despite her brain death, they're arguing that she is not brain dead.

In terms of the legal argument, they are pretty much arguing that Jahi is not dead. They also seem to believe she is not brain dead and is recovering, but that's not really the issue in court. Whatever her current condition is, they don't accept it as dead - brain dead or something less hopeless, they still have an argument for life support measures as long as they can claim she is not dead. Whether or not she's brain dead would be a battle down the road, and would end up being one of medical experts. It doesn't appear they have much to back them up in that regard, although we don't know a whole lot about her current condition. So they have to stick to the argument that she's not dead, and avoid discussing what exactly happened to her brain.

 

[TJL]

JMO but I'm not convinced this case ultimately has anything to do with the family's religious rights to believe that braindead people are not dead until cardiac death and that life support measures should be continued until God turns the heart off.

That's just one of the arguments Dolan and Byrne et al. pulled out of their hat to argue in court. The family may or may not believe so but it seems to be rather irrelevant to their views of Jahi's situation as they're not arguing that life support should be continued despite her brain death, they're arguing that she is not brain dead.

Indeed *thumbs up 100%*. It's almost as if they went down a list of "things to try" to get what they wanted, and the religion excuse was the one that got them juuuust enough support to get at least something they wanted. This is evidenced by the fact that New Jersey wasn't even their first choice. They were going to run to New York when New Beginnings got involved. But it turned out that NB had no business or even the capability to do what was necessary to make it all happen. And then suddenly the lady who's affiliated with IBRF got in touch with NW. New Jersey just happened to be where IBRF is basing all their research out of (how convenient...the only state where they can get away with experimenting on BD bodies and still call it medical care), so that's where they ended up. Dr. Fellus (when he was still a doctor, that is) is the physician who works with IBRF, and he was using St. Peter's as his base of operations in New Jersey.

Someone else pointed out that as soon as Fellus lost his medical license for having inappropriate relationships with his patients, got fired for it and lost his credentials at St. Peters, it was very shortly afterwards that Jahi's body was removed from St. Peters and put into the private apartment.

New Jersey was a mere matter of convenience to them, and not even their first thought.

 

[TJL]

In terms of the legal argument, they are pretty much arguing that Jahi is not dead. They also seem to believe she is not brain dead and is recovering, but that's not really the issue in court. Whatever her current condition is, they don't accept it as dead - brain dead or something less hopeless, they still have an argument for life support measures as long as they can claim she is not dead.

I'm not certain that's entirely true, since Grillo denied their petition for continued medical care and surgical procedures under their argument that they don't believe she is dead.

He first denied their petition for medical treatment on December 26th, 2013. He then denied the petition that Defendant perform or permit surgical procedures, with final judgment in both petitions entered on January 17th, 2014. In both petitions, NW used two different strategies: first, claiming that since she is Jahi's mother and guardian, that she has the legal right to make medical decisions for her child and thus force CHO to continue medical care in any capacity that she saw fit. Her second strategy was the religious beliefs objection to brain death. She lost both strategies on the grounds that #1: Jahi is deceased and no longer has the right to medical care of a living person. And #2: CA's laws allow for BD to be a legal death determination, and as such the mother again doesn't have medical decision "rights" after Jahi died.

People are, understandably, confused that because Grillo allowed the mother to take the body from the coroner's custody, that this somehow implies he was ruling in her favor or ruling in favor of religious objection rights in BD cases. But he never actually made any "ruling in her favor". The releasing of the body to the mother from coroner's custody was something he allowed, true. But that was a settlement both she and CHO came to outside of court, at Grillo's direction. He told them to come to a settlement both parties could "live" with...in essence so he wouldn't have to rule on the matter. He basically didn't want to be painted as the judge that wasn't going to let a mother continue to grieve in her own way. I think he chose what he thought was the lesser of two evils, and her certainly didn't think this would go on nearly this long.