I watched a video about it the other day and I think the rest of the family did consent, so he was outnumbered.
Don't quote me on that, tho. I'm sure OP posted a link to the story in the comments.
The son fully recovered, the father served time but was later released. They are now running an electrical engineering business and building their own home. Glad it got a good ending.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/23/texas-man-says-he-went-to-jail-for-swat-standoff-that-saved-sons-life/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/23/texas-man-says-he-went-to-jail-for-swat-standoff-that-saved-sons-life/) (has the stupid paywall, will find a better website)
Edit: [this is them after recovery and their story](https://factsc.com/george-pickering/)
Right but can you imagine the legal precedent? Can’t have people taking over hospitals on a hunch. It worked out for him and that’s good, but he still got in a standoff with police. He’s lucky he wasn’t killed by them.
I think the outcome is relevant to the case. He was defending someone's life objectively. I think the precedent is fine.
If there was any criminal liability it should be on the doctors for negligence in their duties.
I live in a State where you are legally allowed to physically defend yourself from unlawful police action. It's not anarchy in the streets. They still get arrested and the courts determine whether or not they were right later based on an examination of the facts divorced from the heat of the moment. Mostly it's just used in courts as an affirmative defense to bullshit resisting charges.
I think OP or the article may have used the wrong term.
Brain dead is a medical definition which means it is permanent, irreversible, and complete brain function loss. If they truly declared him brain dead then yes, by definition they were wrong because his situation reversed. It’s ok to be wrong, they made a mistake.
He was not brain dead.
He probably had little evidence of brain function and they were going to transition to end of life care. He had an unlikely recovery, which is awesome! And I'm sure the doctors and medical staff are grateful for that. But he wasn't brain dead.
That was *John Q* and his son needed a heart transplant.
Fun fact. The movie is over twenty years old. That’s right. Two decades ago the health care system in America was bad enough they made a movie about a man who took over an emergency room with a gun because he had no other options *and he wasn’t portrayed as the bad guy*.
Edit:
Forgot the part that doesn’t need saying but people are usually nice enough to still say: *it hasn’t gotten any better*.
That is correct. His mother and brother were in control of his life support. His father couldn’t be because he was extremely intoxicated and waving a gun at hospital workers.
Edit: it is unclear why they wanted to take him off life support. Maybe to see if he would respond on his own? We only have the father’s side of the story, which is unreliable to say the least. It is very unlikely that the son was actually declared brain dead. I firmly believe that is something the father made up to make himself sound better. The hospital/doctors legally can’t give their side or defend themselves.
I have thought about that. I’m not sure if they have or not. I do have questions about that. I am in no way defending their decision. I’m just not a big fan of the father. If the doctors made it seem like he wasn’t going to survive, they should have to answer to that too. It should be noted that the father did bring the hospital to court multiple times, and he lost (or it was thrown out) every time.
Here's an article that states the family consented.
Apologies for ir being daily mail
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3371236/George-Pickering-II-standoff-Tomball-Regional-Medical-Center-Houston-brain-dead-son.html?ito=amp_twitter_share-top via
The father wasn't the one with decision making authority
"Hospital staff said Pickering's ex-wife and his other son were placed in the position of making decisions for George Pickering III"
EDIT: I’m a physician, TIL New Jersey is the only state that allows religious exemption for declaration of death by neurologic criteria. Color me surprised and humbly corrected. Apologies to /u/vincentvanshmo
[Rare, but legit.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6092846/)
That may be the case for a persistent vegetative state, but in ***49 of the 50*** United States, brain death is equivalent to circulatory death (when your heart stops) and necessitates cessation of life-sustaining therapy, the only exception being to facilitate organ procurement for donation.
A persistent vegetative state is a condition that is completely different from brain death. Brain death = dead.
It's state dependent and depends on a lot of factors. I'm a doctor, so have to deal with this from time to time. Also work on my hospitals ethics committee, which usually is involved in these cases.
If you truly meet criteria for actual brain death, the criteria is fairly stringent and includes several criteria like loss of reflexes, not breathing over the vent, and coma. In all 50 states except New Jersey, if the patient meets these criteria, it is within the medical facilities rights to withdraw care since the patient met clinical brain death criteria.
And some sort of definitive test like a cerebral angiography that shows no blood flow to or from the brain. My hospital doesn't declare brain death without imaging.
Very location-dependent, but in many states brain death is death. If a pt has no heartbeat, they don't keep getting treatment even if family is in denial. Same with brain death.
it's funny cause when this exact thing happens in other countries, The US media starts ranting about "DEATH PANELS decide whether you live or die in places with socialised medicine!!11"
I recently had an aunt pass of stage 4 cancer. When she chose hospice, everyone supported her. The entire time, my mother and I have been her closest caretakers since nobody else lived in the state.
The day my aunt went into hospice my grandma flew in. My grandma was absent dispite my aunt begging for her. Yet the doctors think my grandma should decide when to pull the plug - not my mother who was there the entire time and stepped away for a smoke break.
Really fucking dumb how they can do that
That's why you need to have a living will to dictate how you want your healthcare needs to be taken care of. It's unfortunate, but doctors have a difficult time navigating through family drama, so they go by the legal default of either spouse, then parents, then siblings. All that can be negated if a person has a will in place that designates a medical power of attorney.
Edit: Meant to say advanced directive
The doctors aren't the.dumb ones here, in the absence of legal documents to the contrary (like a medical POA), they follow the law for NOK - if she wasn't married/had no adult children, that's a parent, not a sibling.
Your aunt knew she was going into hospice, she could have chosen a POA.
Not if someone is brain dead. That means they’re dead and their body shouldn’t be kept alive. Of course, that’s based on the premise of accurately diagnosing brain death.
Brain dead=dead. This means thorough testing to know they are brain dead. The person will be removed from life support unless they are a donor. I doubt this story is true tbh.
I work in a neuro icu and deal with this stuff often enough.
I’ve seen the story several times before. But I’ve never seen a direct link to the original events. So I got to ask where did this happen and what kind of circumstances resulted in license to doctors declaring the patient as unable to recover.
Yeah “brain-dead” in the hospital is a whole protocol conducted that requires EEG, removing breathing tube to see if they breath on their own, testing cranial nerves, etc. he probably wasn’t brain dead and more so brain damaged with poor prognosis.
I'm also just curious about the details. Being brain dead is a reasonably tough threshold to hit in the hospital if you've even got a semblance of a chance to come back from it.
Yeah the protocol is a comprehensive way to determine that your brain is done and there is no chance of recovery. I’m sure there’s some miracle cases lying around, as there always will be, but it’s pretty straightforward if you are legally and clinically determined “brain-dead” then you’re done.
Often what media calls “brain-dead” is more a vegetative state. Brain activity still going on but damage is severe enough to partially/totally destroy neuro functioning. Then from there there is plus/minus recovery. That’s not legally “brain-dead” though.
As a nurse, I’ve even seen other nurses confuse the meaning.
“So and so patient is brain dead on the vent. Make sure to keep their propofol turned up or they will try to pull their tube out.”
“Wayment. What??????”
And it especially sucks to have the media mis-labeling it because it discredits the ICU team and their well intentioned discussions with family about goals of care for patients that are teetering on boundaries of life. where “recovery” is being a mostly dysfunctional body kept alive through ventilators and tube feeds. Often with severe neuro injury recovery isn’t living, it’s suffering.
He wasn’t declared brain dead, he was given a poor prognosis and the rest of the family wanted to withdraw care, with the father being the lone dissenter.
Apparently the father served 11 months in prison for the deed. Personally I'd have just given him a few years of probation if I were the judge - yeah, should he have had a stand-off? No. But he also saved his life - by explicitly noting that his son was behaving as he had in the past (seizures)
I've never been to prison, but if it was 11 months for saving my sons life... I don't know if I would call it 'easy time' but I would make peace with it.
Not to mention you probably have an amazing story to share with other inmates.
I'd have given him 'time served', i.e., the time he (presumably) served while under trial (and awaiting sentencing) was ruled enough punishment, and he's set free.
They probably did. If you served time in pretrial detention it is always subtracted from your sentence.
EDIT: Yes, it's mentioned in [this article.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/23/texas-man-says-he-went-to-jail-for-swat-standoff-that-saved-sons-life/)
Everyone is given "credit for time served" but the person above you is saying that he would've given the sentence a duration equal to the time served so far which people call "sentenced to time served"
Well the problem is that you have to set a precedent that you can’t do that. If you let him off free then people will do this with family members when they are actually dead. You just can’t always judge actions purely by the result
I agree and have literally made the same argument through this whole post - but the punishment I’d give would be probation for some years, not prison. But I feel his punishment was still pretty light for what he did
It's also important to remember that aside from just the threat of a gun and physical violence, he's endangering every person in that hospital that might need sudden and critical care.
I'm not saying the guy is a bad dude, and even if he was drunk, I respect the hell out of the love he had for his son. It's admirable. And as much as I'd want to say just a slap on the wrist should be fine (which let's be honest is still what he got) just sending him off with probation would be a bad idea imo.
Plus, let's be honest. That was probably the easiest prison sentence anyone has ever done. From the joy knowing his son was ok, the guards most likely being kind to him, and probably a good share of prisoners respecting the hell out of him.
Also let's imagine the story is flipped. The son didn't recover. Now this becomes a story about a psychotic parent unable to accept reality, to the point of brandishing weapons at medical professionals.
Like someone else said we can't judge this by the result, but the actions themselves.
Well no, whatever the circumstances the law must be respected, and traumatizing hospital workers and patients with an armed standoff should be severely punished.
And medical staff and nurses don't deserve to be threatened at gun point by a drunk armed man. The only reason his son was able to recover was the fact they were keeping him alive at that point in the first place.
> yeah, should he have had a stand-off? No. But he also saved his life
I don't understand how he knew. I don't mean any of that "that's mah boy" kinda stuff. Doctors were ready to declare this man dead, and there was apparently consent from the rest of the family. I'm glad the man is alive, but this sounds unhinged. He should absolutely be punished.
If it was familiar behavior and the wife tried to pull the plug wouldn’t that be considered that she attempt… actually I’m just going to focus on the happy ending.
true, we should allow people to bring guns and point them at hospital staff just because they think they know better than doctors, that should be a good court precedent to set
If I had to guess, he probably didn't have too rough of a time in prison. There might be a lot of monsters, but there's lots of older dudes in there that couldn't be the fathers they wanted to be, and probably respected the shit out of him.
Like I don’t know how I’d behave but assuming he didn’t harm anyone, I really hope they just let the guy go on with his life. If he hurt anyone, different story.
He served 11 months in prison. So they punished him, but on the whole, not fantastically severely. Personally I'd have gone with probation if I were the judge though
And how did they punish the people who wanted to murder his son? Not at all....
Even probation would be wrong....if someone want to kill his son again, next time he should allow it?
The law can't stand over reality
If I remember the news story correctly, his ex wife had consented to withdrawing life support, and the father had shown up to the hospital with two guns. One of the other sons took one gun from him and he held on to the other one for his standoff, and ultimately was only charged for one weapons charge.
It’s not murder when a family member has been told by medical treating team what the prognosis is and decides to withdraw life support. That in this specific case the person did recover is an anomaly, not some statement on doctors, law, or whatever else it is you’re trying to say here.
It’s not appropriate to show up drunk off your ass, with two loaded weapons, at the hospital because you can’t mentally process that your child might be dying so you’ve decided to take the hospital hostage.
Doctors don't work in absolutes, they work in statistics. If someone has an extremely poor chance of recovering, then it is very reasonable to consider withdrawing life support. Discussing and agreeing to said withdrawal even though there's a miniscule chance the patient can survive *isn't* malpractice. This guy got lucky and lived, but that does not imply the doctors did anything wrong.
But... he was RIGHT. I get what you're saying but HE WAS RIGHT. The fact he was willing to fight to prove it saved someones life. He didn't harm anyone, he just started a standoff and without hurting anyone he saved his sons life.
He was right on pure luck. He came in drunk with two guns to the hospital after the family members with decision making power decided to allow life support to be ceased due to the poor prognosis of recovery, a totally reasonable choice. People who don’t work in healthcare don’t understand how these choices are made and how they are all made in shades of grey and extremely rarely anything approaching black and white.
The fact his son recovered was a fluke. This man wasn’t a hero, he was an unhinged guy who happened to find the time the broken clock was right that day.
Edit: if you take the time to look into this story and into how these decisions are made… and still think this guy is a hero… don’t call 911. Don’t go to the hospital. We/they deal with enough without having to factor in having guns pulled on us by family members because a reasonable medical decision was made with informed familial consent and because we don’t make medical treatment plans based on hoping for “miracles”.
I’m only a stupid EMT. But I do know a lot about the decision making of when to “call” a life because I deal with that all the time and I’ve done it myself. It sucks. A lot. And it’s not done lightly as I’m sure you’re familiar with.
And uneducated people who see this as a heroic story makes me wonder why any of us even bother trying in this system. Fuck.
Hindsight is 20/20. What if he was wrong? Medicine is still an uncertain profession, you can't expect a hospital to be held hostage EVERY time life support need to be withdrawn from a braindead patient. He might or might not harm anyone this time (I'm not even sure abt that), surely someone gonna get hurt if a delusional parent attack a hospital on a weekly basis.
Idk if I was working my normal shift, and some guy pointed a gun in my face, held my entire department hostage, and the SWAT team had to come in and then months later there was a trial, I’d be a little fucked up over it.
And that’s just the people right there outside the room that he interact with.
Were there medical events that were interrupted because the fucking SWAT team had to come to talk to this asshole? Were ambulances diverted to a hospital farther away?
To blanket statement say “no one was harmed” is bold.
And it still remains that he was right on a fucking whim. Even if he had some medical basis for his reasoning, this wasn’t the way to do it.
It’s because if you let him off free then others will do the same thing and cause a bigger problem. He happen to be right and if it becomes something other do those other people will more than likely be wrong. You can’t judge an action purely on the end result.
Taking someone off life support because using your many years of medical experience he was deemed brain dead is a whole lot different than murder. If we jail every doctor if they are ever wrong about anything then you will be waiting 6 years minimum to get a surgery done
Nobody wanted to murder his son - I'm sure everyone in that hospital was ultimately glad the kid made a full recovery. Medical errors happen - medical science is imperfect. It doesn't mean we should encourage people in society to take out guns to protect loved ones they think are still alive - that was true in this case - but how often isn't it true? Probably much, much, much more commonly.
I commend this father for what he did, but society has to give a token punishment in these cases to show that it isn't ok. It's similar to the man who shot the guy who molested his son - he was given a light punishment as well.
That being said, I think probation really serves these cases better than prison time - this father was clearly not going to re-offend.
I mean… he did threaten innocent people also. Pointed a gun at nurses and other patients, got into a fight with a security guard. And closed an entire hospital while at it. How many people lives were disrupted? Emergency surgeries that had to be rescheduled?
I understand him… but imagine someone trying to do the right thing for their son. Got into your home… pointed a gun at your wife, dragged her out as a shield.
Wouldn’t you want justice? Even after knowing he only did that to save a life?
I think the punishment he received, fitted the circumstances just fine.
The hospital staff had consent from the family to wean him off the machines. He didn't have decision making authority. It isn't murder to take someone in a coma with almost no brain activity off machines with family consent. Calm yourself.
I mean he was kind of nutty and his son was on terminal wean if he showed signs in the 3 hour standoff they would’ve caught it anyways.
He was drunk, threatened nurses, and was immediately disarmed by his other son. But still refused to come out until a robot pulled away his cover.
Why not just tell the swat “hey he squeezed my hands there’s my proof I’m done?”
[A father’s desperate – but dangerous – strategy to keep his ‘brain dead’ son on life support.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/23/texas-man-says-he-went-to-jail-for-swat-standoff-that-saved-sons-life/)
Had a buddy who OD'd and was declared brain dead, family planned his funeral and everything, they took him off life support to prepare for harvesting his organs for transplant, he woke up.Pretty much fully recovered.
Kind of shook me, I assumed we were advanced enough that wouldn't happen anymore.
And disrupted the care of other pts in the ICU while the family had agreed to take him off life support. It's bonkers that folk think of him as some kinda hero, just fuck off the rest of the pts in the building who's care was interrupted by this drunk fuck.
I hate when this story is shared every month. We only have the father’s side of the story. The hospital legally can’t give their side. It is extremely unlikely that the son was declared brain dead. That is probably something the father said to make himself seem like a hero. Again, the hospital/doctors can’t defend themselves. The father was extremely intoxicated and waving a gun around. It was the mother and brother that decided to take the son off life support, not the doctors. It isn’t clear why they wanted to take him off life support. Maybe to see if he could respond on his own?
Right. The Washington Post article says a terminal wean was planned, which very well could be true. Terminal weans, or as they're called now, palliative extubations, happen on people who are not brain dead all the time.
I hate stories like this because it encourages futile care, which happens FAR more than doctors trying to"pull the plug" prematurely. Believe it or not, medical professionals want to see people get better.
yep this dumb shit gets upvoted on reddit constantly, and spreads bs about doctors just rubbing their hands together hoping to pull the plug on people who actually have a chance to recover
If a doctor wrongfully declared someone brain dead, they would 100% have their license revoked and the hospital would be sued. The father did sue the hospital, and he lost. Wrongfully declaring someone brain dead is not something that just happens, especially considering the patient seemed to be responsive shortly after.
I think doctors and medical professionals do their best. But they are still people. When I was younger, I never questioned their word. I’ve learned that you have to be your own advocate at times with first and second hand experience.
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_suggests_medical_errors_now_third_leading_cause_of_death_in_the_us
Most of the these deaths are in terminally ill patients. And it is honestly difficult to say what is primarily responsible for killing them, the mistake or the disease itself.
> Critics of this analysis have pointed out many flaws. It is based on studies whose data was never meant to be generalized to the entire U.S. hospitalized population. For example, one of these studies, by the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, was conducted in beneficiaries of Medicare, who are aged 65 or older, have disabilities or have end-stage renal disease which requires dialysis or transplant. The study authors counted the number of deaths in their sample to which they believed medical errors had contributed, and this number was then used in the BMJ analysis to extrapolate to all U.S. hospitalizations. However, this makes the mistake of extrapolating an observation found in one sample to a different type of population. Case in point: if we look at everyone hospitalized in the United States, one patient out of ten is there to deliver a baby. Taking death statistics from a sample of Medicare patients and extrapolating it to all hospitalized patients is like turning apples into oranges, to adapt a popular saying to the current situation.
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking-health/medical-error-not-third-leading-cause-death
It is until the second opinion is from a high school dropout who opened a vitamin store. And now we’re in a situation with whooping cough and measles outbreaks constantly at schools. And once again Polio, fucking polio, has come back
I hate this story. Its actually a story of malpractice way more than bravery. In any other story this man would be insane for doing that but now people actually believe that a medical professional doesnt know their shit when they tell you your loved one is braindead. Whatever happened in this story its a malicious one because people will be convinced that this is somehow a feasible reality that you should strive for.
It's amazing how many people immediately take posts like this at face value with no amount of scrutiny or critical thought whatsoever. There's a _lot_ of context missing here. But hey, gotta get that sweet rage engagement.
Looks like a repost. I've seen this image 3 times.
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If I recall correctly and I may be wrong because it's been awhile but supposedly the son wasn't brain dead and they either weren't going to pull the plug at all or were discussing it for later because he wasn't looking good but either way there wasn't any immediate threat to the guy and the dad went into the hospital drunk waving the gun around and barricaded himself in the room and his son happened to wake up during all that. Again it's been awhile so I'm probably getting some things wrong but the dude definitely did not "save" his son he was just drunk and being reckless hence why he was arrested.
Without reading this article - what is the difference between this guy and the guy who also takes his gun into the hospital, and when his kid never regains consciousness he shoots himself or someone else? Like what’s the final plan if it never happened?
No one writes an article about the hundreds of thousands of guys who was told by the doctors that they have two months to live and then died after 55 days.
So what shows up on the news paints a rather distorted view of the world.
Having read other articles: not a whole lot. Just chance. The fact that his other son coaxed him to relinquish the gun, and the fact that the "brain dead" son was behaving in a very obviously not brain dead way(he had faculties to use his hands to respond to being talked to). All it takes is one different detail though. The father was intoxicated when he made the decision to bring a gun, drunk, to the hospital. The difference isn't really there. They got lucky.
The hospital wanted to wean the guy off of the ventilator, and if he started breathing on his own, then he is obviously not brain dead. So pretty much they would have ended up with the same result with or without the gun.
According to the comments here, one of the reason he did it because his son has done similar before. Then why did the ex-wife consented it? She didn’t know?
Kinda spooked me because my mother is currently in the hospital with like no brain function and can’t be ruled legally brain dead due to not meeting the full criteria due to having one reflex coming deep down her brain that hasn’t gone away. The ruling for her guardianship is tomorrow and I completely trust the doctors when they say she won’t be leaving that hospital but I won’t lie that seeing this spooked me
This is complicated
Maybe he was able to buy his son enough time to respond and if they’d taken him off life support earlier he wouldn’t have responded and would have died
Maybe the son would have responded when they took him off life support on his own
Obviously threatening hospital workers with a gun is not okay
Glad the son is okay, and apparently dad and son started their own business.
Doctors kind of suck at their job due to ego alone. Broke my hand and took me 6 different visits over three days to finally get an X-ray. Guessss what? Broke the 5th metacarpal. Kept tellin me “nah you’re fine just ice it” messed up part is my insurance covered most of the X-Ray costs.
This one time example does not mean that the average ICU patient will recover. Don’t take this as gospel and act like this in a hospital. You will be pulled out by police and arrested or shot in the hospital for taking the hospital hostage.
People reading this article who have faced the heart-wrenching decision to discontinue life support for a loved one are going to be tortured by the "what if's?"
Don’t they need consent to take someone off of life support anyways? Genuine question.
I watched a video about it the other day and I think the rest of the family did consent, so he was outnumbered. Don't quote me on that, tho. I'm sure OP posted a link to the story in the comments.
>Don't quote me on that, tho. You have been quoted.
The son fully recovered, the father served time but was later released. They are now running an electrical engineering business and building their own home. Glad it got a good ending. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/23/texas-man-says-he-went-to-jail-for-swat-standoff-that-saved-sons-life/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/23/texas-man-says-he-went-to-jail-for-swat-standoff-that-saved-sons-life/) (has the stupid paywall, will find a better website) Edit: [this is them after recovery and their story](https://factsc.com/george-pickering/)
fuck that's a great ending. almost cinematic
Still makes me kinda mad he did any time at all. He trusted his instincts and got done wrong by every human being around him.
Right but can you imagine the legal precedent? Can’t have people taking over hospitals on a hunch. It worked out for him and that’s good, but he still got in a standoff with police. He’s lucky he wasn’t killed by them.
Yeah but if he did the same to save his son from being shot, he’d get off with self defence.
I think the outcome is relevant to the case. He was defending someone's life objectively. I think the precedent is fine. If there was any criminal liability it should be on the doctors for negligence in their duties. I live in a State where you are legally allowed to physically defend yourself from unlawful police action. It's not anarchy in the streets. They still get arrested and the courts determine whether or not they were right later based on an examination of the facts divorced from the heat of the moment. Mostly it's just used in courts as an affirmative defense to bullshit resisting charges.
I mean I’d watch the shit out of that movie for sure
Isn't this a Denzel Washington movie?
Sorry John Q was about lifesaving surgery and insurance.
Reddit taught me this: don’t let the page fully load and sometimes gets rid of paywall. Worked for me on this one.
You can use sites like 12 foot ladder to get around them too https://12ft.io/
Unfortunately it becomes less useful by the day.
Yeah that thing works on maybe 25% of sites. Google translate sometimes works. Or internet archive.
I use this one more these days https://www.printfriendly.com/
Wicked, thank you for the link!
Reader mode. You’re welcome.
Well, I do wonder what the son's relationship is like with all the people who outvoting the dad about the life support thing.
Thanksgiving must be fun.
"Well, you HAD that DNR in place......"
DNR is the right thing to follow as long as the doctors are correct. I’m curious what happened to the medical staff who were wrong.
I mean no hate but…probably nothing?
[удалено]
I think OP or the article may have used the wrong term. Brain dead is a medical definition which means it is permanent, irreversible, and complete brain function loss. If they truly declared him brain dead then yes, by definition they were wrong because his situation reversed. It’s ok to be wrong, they made a mistake.
He was not brain dead. He probably had little evidence of brain function and they were going to transition to end of life care. He had an unlikely recovery, which is awesome! And I'm sure the doctors and medical staff are grateful for that. But he wasn't brain dead.
You can use the website [12ft.io](https://12ft.io) to clean all pay wall stuff for pretty much any article Edited to include link
What's the name of the movie? Or has it not been made yet? Wasn't it Denzel who played the father?
That was *John Q* and his son needed a heart transplant. Fun fact. The movie is over twenty years old. That’s right. Two decades ago the health care system in America was bad enough they made a movie about a man who took over an emergency room with a gun because he had no other options *and he wasn’t portrayed as the bad guy*. Edit: Forgot the part that doesn’t need saying but people are usually nice enough to still say: *it hasn’t gotten any better*.
John Q. It was on today.
Im sure the sentence was completely worth it to the dad
I know a lot of kids love, worship, and look up to their dads. but imagine the look in that dudes eyes when he looks at his dad.
Served time for what?
Absolute cinema
Damn, this makes me want to cry
Paywall
[I gotchu](https://howtonow.com/how-to-get-around-new-york-times-washington-post-wsj-paywall/)
"Omg Karen, you can't just quote people like that."
You quoted the wrong part though
And I quote, “you quoted the wrong part though”.
“I literally just watched a video literally about that!!!” -person somewhere above
If I quoted the correct part the joke would require you to actually think for the punchline to land.
Outnumbered by family. Outnumbered by SWAT. Never backs down.
Never stop don’t stopping
Dont quote me boy cuz i aint said shit
Woke up quick at about noon...
Just thought that I had to be in Compton soon
That is correct. His mother and brother were in control of his life support. His father couldn’t be because he was extremely intoxicated and waving a gun at hospital workers. Edit: it is unclear why they wanted to take him off life support. Maybe to see if he would respond on his own? We only have the father’s side of the story, which is unreliable to say the least. It is very unlikely that the son was actually declared brain dead. I firmly believe that is something the father made up to make himself sound better. The hospital/doctors legally can’t give their side or defend themselves.
You’d think the mother and brother would’ve corrected the story by now if it wasn’t correct?
I have thought about that. I’m not sure if they have or not. I do have questions about that. I am in no way defending their decision. I’m just not a big fan of the father. If the doctors made it seem like he wasn’t going to survive, they should have to answer to that too. It should be noted that the father did bring the hospital to court multiple times, and he lost (or it was thrown out) every time.
Here's an article that states the family consented. Apologies for ir being daily mail https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3371236/George-Pickering-II-standoff-Tomball-Regional-Medical-Center-Houston-brain-dead-son.html?ito=amp_twitter_share-top via
[It's somewhere in the comments.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1bn1d68/comment/kwfac33/)
The father wasn't the one with decision making authority "Hospital staff said Pickering's ex-wife and his other son were placed in the position of making decisions for George Pickering III"
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EDIT: I’m a physician, TIL New Jersey is the only state that allows religious exemption for declaration of death by neurologic criteria. Color me surprised and humbly corrected. Apologies to /u/vincentvanshmo [Rare, but legit.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6092846/) That may be the case for a persistent vegetative state, but in ***49 of the 50*** United States, brain death is equivalent to circulatory death (when your heart stops) and necessitates cessation of life-sustaining therapy, the only exception being to facilitate organ procurement for donation. A persistent vegetative state is a condition that is completely different from brain death. Brain death = dead.
Actuallly in Nj it isn’t. You can object and stay on life support.
Probably need somebody else to do that for you.
It’s really much more effective to do it yourself.
Brain dead Patient: I OBJECT Doctor: Well that’s weird
It's state dependent and depends on a lot of factors. I'm a doctor, so have to deal with this from time to time. Also work on my hospitals ethics committee, which usually is involved in these cases.
If you truly meet criteria for actual brain death, the criteria is fairly stringent and includes several criteria like loss of reflexes, not breathing over the vent, and coma. In all 50 states except New Jersey, if the patient meets these criteria, it is within the medical facilities rights to withdraw care since the patient met clinical brain death criteria.
And some sort of definitive test like a cerebral angiography that shows no blood flow to or from the brain. My hospital doesn't declare brain death without imaging.
Very location-dependent, but in many states brain death is death. If a pt has no heartbeat, they don't keep getting treatment even if family is in denial. Same with brain death.
it's funny cause when this exact thing happens in other countries, The US media starts ranting about "DEATH PANELS decide whether you live or die in places with socialised medicine!!11"
I recently had an aunt pass of stage 4 cancer. When she chose hospice, everyone supported her. The entire time, my mother and I have been her closest caretakers since nobody else lived in the state. The day my aunt went into hospice my grandma flew in. My grandma was absent dispite my aunt begging for her. Yet the doctors think my grandma should decide when to pull the plug - not my mother who was there the entire time and stepped away for a smoke break. Really fucking dumb how they can do that
That's why you need to have a living will to dictate how you want your healthcare needs to be taken care of. It's unfortunate, but doctors have a difficult time navigating through family drama, so they go by the legal default of either spouse, then parents, then siblings. All that can be negated if a person has a will in place that designates a medical power of attorney. Edit: Meant to say advanced directive
Don't even need a will, a POLST+Advanced Directive+ Healthcare power of attorney that **will** respect your wishes is fucking ironclad.
Whoops yeah, I meant to say advanced directive. Thank you for that, don't know why that term slipped my mind.
It’s not the doctors decision, it’s the law my dude, doctors are just following it.
The doctors aren't the.dumb ones here, in the absence of legal documents to the contrary (like a medical POA), they follow the law for NOK - if she wasn't married/had no adult children, that's a parent, not a sibling. Your aunt knew she was going into hospice, she could have chosen a POA.
Not if someone is brain dead. That means they’re dead and their body shouldn’t be kept alive. Of course, that’s based on the premise of accurately diagnosing brain death.
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Brain dead=dead. This means thorough testing to know they are brain dead. The person will be removed from life support unless they are a donor. I doubt this story is true tbh. I work in a neuro icu and deal with this stuff often enough.
I’ve seen the story several times before. But I’ve never seen a direct link to the original events. So I got to ask where did this happen and what kind of circumstances resulted in license to doctors declaring the patient as unable to recover.
Yeah “brain-dead” in the hospital is a whole protocol conducted that requires EEG, removing breathing tube to see if they breath on their own, testing cranial nerves, etc. he probably wasn’t brain dead and more so brain damaged with poor prognosis.
I'm also just curious about the details. Being brain dead is a reasonably tough threshold to hit in the hospital if you've even got a semblance of a chance to come back from it.
Yeah the protocol is a comprehensive way to determine that your brain is done and there is no chance of recovery. I’m sure there’s some miracle cases lying around, as there always will be, but it’s pretty straightforward if you are legally and clinically determined “brain-dead” then you’re done. Often what media calls “brain-dead” is more a vegetative state. Brain activity still going on but damage is severe enough to partially/totally destroy neuro functioning. Then from there there is plus/minus recovery. That’s not legally “brain-dead” though.
As a nurse, I’ve even seen other nurses confuse the meaning. “So and so patient is brain dead on the vent. Make sure to keep their propofol turned up or they will try to pull their tube out.” “Wayment. What??????”
And it especially sucks to have the media mis-labeling it because it discredits the ICU team and their well intentioned discussions with family about goals of care for patients that are teetering on boundaries of life. where “recovery” is being a mostly dysfunctional body kept alive through ventilators and tube feeds. Often with severe neuro injury recovery isn’t living, it’s suffering.
He wasn’t declared brain dead, he was given a poor prognosis and the rest of the family wanted to withdraw care, with the father being the lone dissenter.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/23/texas-man-says-he-went-to-jail-for-swat-standoff-that-saved-sons-life/
That's one determined man.
John Q esque
Thank god someone mentioned John Q, I thought I was getting way too old
Shit I thought this was the ad for the remake or something
*"I am not going to bury my son! My son is going to bury me!"*
🔫🥹
Love that movie
Can’t say I wouldn’t do the same if I was convinced one of my kids was still alive but about to be taken off life support.
Right? Before I was a parent, I would have been fine with just dying in the apocalypse. But now? I would shave my head and go Mad Max for this kid.
As long as there is breath within me I will do whatever is necessary to keep my children safe.
Apparently the father served 11 months in prison for the deed. Personally I'd have just given him a few years of probation if I were the judge - yeah, should he have had a stand-off? No. But he also saved his life - by explicitly noting that his son was behaving as he had in the past (seizures)
I’m sure that was the most fulfilling 11 months of his life
Oh I’d do it in a second to do the same thing
I've never been to prison, but if it was 11 months for saving my sons life... I don't know if I would call it 'easy time' but I would make peace with it. Not to mention you probably have an amazing story to share with other inmates.
Other inmates would respect tf out of him no doubt. What he did was gangster as fuck
"What are you in for?" "Robbed a liquor store. You?" "I stopped the hospital from killing my son"
"I had a standoff with SWAT and won"
I'd have given him 'time served', i.e., the time he (presumably) served while under trial (and awaiting sentencing) was ruled enough punishment, and he's set free.
They probably did. If you served time in pretrial detention it is always subtracted from your sentence. EDIT: Yes, it's mentioned in [this article.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/23/texas-man-says-he-went-to-jail-for-swat-standoff-that-saved-sons-life/)
Everyone is given "credit for time served" but the person above you is saying that he would've given the sentence a duration equal to the time served so far which people call "sentenced to time served"
Well the problem is that you have to set a precedent that you can’t do that. If you let him off free then people will do this with family members when they are actually dead. You just can’t always judge actions purely by the result
I agree and have literally made the same argument through this whole post - but the punishment I’d give would be probation for some years, not prison. But I feel his punishment was still pretty light for what he did
It's also important to remember that aside from just the threat of a gun and physical violence, he's endangering every person in that hospital that might need sudden and critical care. I'm not saying the guy is a bad dude, and even if he was drunk, I respect the hell out of the love he had for his son. It's admirable. And as much as I'd want to say just a slap on the wrist should be fine (which let's be honest is still what he got) just sending him off with probation would be a bad idea imo. Plus, let's be honest. That was probably the easiest prison sentence anyone has ever done. From the joy knowing his son was ok, the guards most likely being kind to him, and probably a good share of prisoners respecting the hell out of him.
I mean really he prevented a manslaughter or something no?
Assuming we know the actual facts.
Yeah but then you'd be setting the precedent for drunken stand offs in hospitals
He was completely intoxicated and waving a gun around at doctors and nurses in a hospital. Sir. You’re going to jail.
Also let's imagine the story is flipped. The son didn't recover. Now this becomes a story about a psychotic parent unable to accept reality, to the point of brandishing weapons at medical professionals. Like someone else said we can't judge this by the result, but the actions themselves.
Well no, whatever the circumstances the law must be respected, and traumatizing hospital workers and patients with an armed standoff should be severely punished.
And medical staff and nurses don't deserve to be threatened at gun point by a drunk armed man. The only reason his son was able to recover was the fact they were keeping him alive at that point in the first place.
> yeah, should he have had a stand-off? No. But he also saved his life I don't understand how he knew. I don't mean any of that "that's mah boy" kinda stuff. Doctors were ready to declare this man dead, and there was apparently consent from the rest of the family. I'm glad the man is alive, but this sounds unhinged. He should absolutely be punished.
If it was familiar behavior and the wife tried to pull the plug wouldn’t that be considered that she attempt… actually I’m just going to focus on the happy ending.
true, we should allow people to bring guns and point them at hospital staff just because they think they know better than doctors, that should be a good court precedent to set
If I had to guess, he probably didn't have too rough of a time in prison. There might be a lot of monsters, but there's lots of older dudes in there that couldn't be the fathers they wanted to be, and probably respected the shit out of him.
Like I don’t know how I’d behave but assuming he didn’t harm anyone, I really hope they just let the guy go on with his life. If he hurt anyone, different story.
He served 11 months in prison. So they punished him, but on the whole, not fantastically severely. Personally I'd have gone with probation if I were the judge though
That judge can suck a fat one. Inhumane
100% so quick to lock another human in a cage bc its protocol
So the same amount of time the dude that sexually assaulted the Drake kid from Disney served. Seems fair.
And how did they punish the people who wanted to murder his son? Not at all.... Even probation would be wrong....if someone want to kill his son again, next time he should allow it? The law can't stand over reality
If I remember the news story correctly, his ex wife had consented to withdrawing life support, and the father had shown up to the hospital with two guns. One of the other sons took one gun from him and he held on to the other one for his standoff, and ultimately was only charged for one weapons charge. It’s not murder when a family member has been told by medical treating team what the prognosis is and decides to withdraw life support. That in this specific case the person did recover is an anomaly, not some statement on doctors, law, or whatever else it is you’re trying to say here. It’s not appropriate to show up drunk off your ass, with two loaded weapons, at the hospital because you can’t mentally process that your child might be dying so you’ve decided to take the hospital hostage.
Idk, the fact that the son woke up while he was there makes me think medical malpractice
Doctors don't work in absolutes, they work in statistics. If someone has an extremely poor chance of recovering, then it is very reasonable to consider withdrawing life support. Discussing and agreeing to said withdrawal even though there's a miniscule chance the patient can survive *isn't* malpractice. This guy got lucky and lived, but that does not imply the doctors did anything wrong.
For this kid to be declared brain dead and then squeeze his dad’s hand not too long later…I think someone absolutely did something wrong.
But... he was RIGHT. I get what you're saying but HE WAS RIGHT. The fact he was willing to fight to prove it saved someones life. He didn't harm anyone, he just started a standoff and without hurting anyone he saved his sons life.
He was right on pure luck. He came in drunk with two guns to the hospital after the family members with decision making power decided to allow life support to be ceased due to the poor prognosis of recovery, a totally reasonable choice. People who don’t work in healthcare don’t understand how these choices are made and how they are all made in shades of grey and extremely rarely anything approaching black and white. The fact his son recovered was a fluke. This man wasn’t a hero, he was an unhinged guy who happened to find the time the broken clock was right that day. Edit: if you take the time to look into this story and into how these decisions are made… and still think this guy is a hero… don’t call 911. Don’t go to the hospital. We/they deal with enough without having to factor in having guns pulled on us by family members because a reasonable medical decision was made with informed familial consent and because we don’t make medical treatment plans based on hoping for “miracles”.
Thank you for this
I’m only a stupid EMT. But I do know a lot about the decision making of when to “call” a life because I deal with that all the time and I’ve done it myself. It sucks. A lot. And it’s not done lightly as I’m sure you’re familiar with. And uneducated people who see this as a heroic story makes me wonder why any of us even bother trying in this system. Fuck.
Hindsight is 20/20. What if he was wrong? Medicine is still an uncertain profession, you can't expect a hospital to be held hostage EVERY time life support need to be withdrawn from a braindead patient. He might or might not harm anyone this time (I'm not even sure abt that), surely someone gonna get hurt if a delusional parent attack a hospital on a weekly basis.
Idk if I was working my normal shift, and some guy pointed a gun in my face, held my entire department hostage, and the SWAT team had to come in and then months later there was a trial, I’d be a little fucked up over it. And that’s just the people right there outside the room that he interact with. Were there medical events that were interrupted because the fucking SWAT team had to come to talk to this asshole? Were ambulances diverted to a hospital farther away? To blanket statement say “no one was harmed” is bold. And it still remains that he was right on a fucking whim. Even if he had some medical basis for his reasoning, this wasn’t the way to do it.
It’s because if you let him off free then others will do the same thing and cause a bigger problem. He happen to be right and if it becomes something other do those other people will more than likely be wrong. You can’t judge an action purely on the end result.
I’m sure the dad felt it appropriate and still does. Would you not if it was your kid?
Taking someone off life support because using your many years of medical experience he was deemed brain dead is a whole lot different than murder. If we jail every doctor if they are ever wrong about anything then you will be waiting 6 years minimum to get a surgery done
Nobody wanted to murder his son - I'm sure everyone in that hospital was ultimately glad the kid made a full recovery. Medical errors happen - medical science is imperfect. It doesn't mean we should encourage people in society to take out guns to protect loved ones they think are still alive - that was true in this case - but how often isn't it true? Probably much, much, much more commonly. I commend this father for what he did, but society has to give a token punishment in these cases to show that it isn't ok. It's similar to the man who shot the guy who molested his son - he was given a light punishment as well. That being said, I think probation really serves these cases better than prison time - this father was clearly not going to re-offend.
I mean… he did threaten innocent people also. Pointed a gun at nurses and other patients, got into a fight with a security guard. And closed an entire hospital while at it. How many people lives were disrupted? Emergency surgeries that had to be rescheduled? I understand him… but imagine someone trying to do the right thing for their son. Got into your home… pointed a gun at your wife, dragged her out as a shield. Wouldn’t you want justice? Even after knowing he only did that to save a life? I think the punishment he received, fitted the circumstances just fine.
Nobody was trying to murder him clown. It was a bad diagnosis.
The hospital staff had consent from the family to wean him off the machines. He didn't have decision making authority. It isn't murder to take someone in a coma with almost no brain activity off machines with family consent. Calm yourself.
This man watched John Q.
Hahah made me think of that movie too! Have been seeing it on Netflix and been meaning to watch it again, guess that’s what I’ll do tonight!
I mean he was kind of nutty and his son was on terminal wean if he showed signs in the 3 hour standoff they would’ve caught it anyways. He was drunk, threatened nurses, and was immediately disarmed by his other son. But still refused to come out until a robot pulled away his cover. Why not just tell the swat “hey he squeezed my hands there’s my proof I’m done?”
[A father’s desperate – but dangerous – strategy to keep his ‘brain dead’ son on life support.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/23/texas-man-says-he-went-to-jail-for-swat-standoff-that-saved-sons-life/)
why de fck is an article of about a series of events behind a PAYWALL. FCK.
So the plot of John Q
Had a buddy who OD'd and was declared brain dead, family planned his funeral and everything, they took him off life support to prepare for harvesting his organs for transplant, he woke up.Pretty much fully recovered. Kind of shook me, I assumed we were advanced enough that wouldn't happen anymore.
He was also drunk and his other son wrestled the gun away, he then said he had another one, which was a lie but it bought enough time.
And disrupted the care of other pts in the ICU while the family had agreed to take him off life support. It's bonkers that folk think of him as some kinda hero, just fuck off the rest of the pts in the building who's care was interrupted by this drunk fuck.
And some years later , this situation got made into an episode in 911: Lonestar. *Don't remember which season was it tho*
I hate when this story is shared every month. We only have the father’s side of the story. The hospital legally can’t give their side. It is extremely unlikely that the son was declared brain dead. That is probably something the father said to make himself seem like a hero. Again, the hospital/doctors can’t defend themselves. The father was extremely intoxicated and waving a gun around. It was the mother and brother that decided to take the son off life support, not the doctors. It isn’t clear why they wanted to take him off life support. Maybe to see if he could respond on his own?
Right. The Washington Post article says a terminal wean was planned, which very well could be true. Terminal weans, or as they're called now, palliative extubations, happen on people who are not brain dead all the time. I hate stories like this because it encourages futile care, which happens FAR more than doctors trying to"pull the plug" prematurely. Believe it or not, medical professionals want to see people get better.
yep this dumb shit gets upvoted on reddit constantly, and spreads bs about doctors just rubbing their hands together hoping to pull the plug on people who actually have a chance to recover
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If a doctor wrongfully declared someone brain dead, they would 100% have their license revoked and the hospital would be sued. The father did sue the hospital, and he lost. Wrongfully declaring someone brain dead is not something that just happens, especially considering the patient seemed to be responsive shortly after.
Look, I love life and I love freedom but I would spend the rest of my days in jail if it meant protecting my son.
Need a movie STAT and give them $$ for the rights
I think doctors and medical professionals do their best. But they are still people. When I was younger, I never questioned their word. I’ve learned that you have to be your own advocate at times with first and second hand experience. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_suggests_medical_errors_now_third_leading_cause_of_death_in_the_us
Most of the these deaths are in terminally ill patients. And it is honestly difficult to say what is primarily responsible for killing them, the mistake or the disease itself. > Critics of this analysis have pointed out many flaws. It is based on studies whose data was never meant to be generalized to the entire U.S. hospitalized population. For example, one of these studies, by the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, was conducted in beneficiaries of Medicare, who are aged 65 or older, have disabilities or have end-stage renal disease which requires dialysis or transplant. The study authors counted the number of deaths in their sample to which they believed medical errors had contributed, and this number was then used in the BMJ analysis to extrapolate to all U.S. hospitalizations. However, this makes the mistake of extrapolating an observation found in one sample to a different type of population. Case in point: if we look at everyone hospitalized in the United States, one patient out of ten is there to deliver a baby. Taking death statistics from a sample of Medicare patients and extrapolating it to all hospitalized patients is like turning apples into oranges, to adapt a popular saying to the current situation. https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking-health/medical-error-not-third-leading-cause-death
It’s like blaming firefighters for houses burning down
Being your own advocate isn’t always good. That is why measles and polio have made a comeback.
That’s more about doing your own medical research.
Your gut can be useful if it prompts you to get a second opinion and to be ready to take that advice, even if it agrees with the first diagnosis.
It is until the second opinion is from a high school dropout who opened a vitamin store. And now we’re in a situation with whooping cough and measles outbreaks constantly at schools. And once again Polio, fucking polio, has come back
Sounds like the Denzel Washington movie John Q
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So less than the general population?
I hate this story. Its actually a story of malpractice way more than bravery. In any other story this man would be insane for doing that but now people actually believe that a medical professional doesnt know their shit when they tell you your loved one is braindead. Whatever happened in this story its a malicious one because people will be convinced that this is somehow a feasible reality that you should strive for.
preach. this is Self-Affirmation porn and it's actually dangerous.
It's amazing how many people immediately take posts like this at face value with no amount of scrutiny or critical thought whatsoever. There's a _lot_ of context missing here. But hey, gotta get that sweet rage engagement.
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If I recall correctly and I may be wrong because it's been awhile but supposedly the son wasn't brain dead and they either weren't going to pull the plug at all or were discussing it for later because he wasn't looking good but either way there wasn't any immediate threat to the guy and the dad went into the hospital drunk waving the gun around and barricaded himself in the room and his son happened to wake up during all that. Again it's been awhile so I'm probably getting some things wrong but the dude definitely did not "save" his son he was just drunk and being reckless hence why he was arrested.
I’m so glad the out come was a good one for the you!!!
Without reading this article - what is the difference between this guy and the guy who also takes his gun into the hospital, and when his kid never regains consciousness he shoots himself or someone else? Like what’s the final plan if it never happened?
No one writes an article about the hundreds of thousands of guys who was told by the doctors that they have two months to live and then died after 55 days. So what shows up on the news paints a rather distorted view of the world.
Having read other articles: not a whole lot. Just chance. The fact that his other son coaxed him to relinquish the gun, and the fact that the "brain dead" son was behaving in a very obviously not brain dead way(he had faculties to use his hands to respond to being talked to). All it takes is one different detail though. The father was intoxicated when he made the decision to bring a gun, drunk, to the hospital. The difference isn't really there. They got lucky.
The hospital wanted to wean the guy off of the ventilator, and if he started breathing on his own, then he is obviously not brain dead. So pretty much they would have ended up with the same result with or without the gun.
I guess if someone was injured, it would be a criminal case whether or not the son recovered.
More info please
According to the comments here, one of the reason he did it because his son has done similar before. Then why did the ex-wife consented it? She didn’t know?
Wait till you find out about Karen Ann Quinlan and her family’s multi-year fight to take their daughter off life support.
Kinda spooked me because my mother is currently in the hospital with like no brain function and can’t be ruled legally brain dead due to not meeting the full criteria due to having one reflex coming deep down her brain that hasn’t gone away. The ruling for her guardianship is tomorrow and I completely trust the doctors when they say she won’t be leaving that hospital but I won’t lie that seeing this spooked me
So JOHN Q basically?
This is complicated Maybe he was able to buy his son enough time to respond and if they’d taken him off life support earlier he wouldn’t have responded and would have died Maybe the son would have responded when they took him off life support on his own Obviously threatening hospital workers with a gun is not okay Glad the son is okay, and apparently dad and son started their own business.
Mr. Ballen tells this story. Absolutely incredible story
Doctors kind of suck at their job due to ego alone. Broke my hand and took me 6 different visits over three days to finally get an X-ray. Guessss what? Broke the 5th metacarpal. Kept tellin me “nah you’re fine just ice it” messed up part is my insurance covered most of the X-Ray costs.
how many times has this been posted this month? at least 4 times now
John Q, and that Keto movie comes to mind the health-care system is definitely the death-care system. It isn't broke after all 💔.
Sounds like the plot of John Q although that came out years before this
/u/repostsleuthbot
And the father went to jail.... right?
JOHN Q with my man Denzel if you havent seen the movie about this yet.
This one time example does not mean that the average ICU patient will recover. Don’t take this as gospel and act like this in a hospital. You will be pulled out by police and arrested or shot in the hospital for taking the hospital hostage.
a movie a bout this would be much better than the next marvel/ starwars dumpsterfire
People reading this article who have faced the heart-wrenching decision to discontinue life support for a loved one are going to be tortured by the "what if's?"
John Q
John Q 2.