Posted on 11/04/2005 3:24:09 AM PST by 8mmMauser
Family members are investigating what they consider to be suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of a nursing home patient at the center of a life and death tug-of-war reminiscent of the Terri Schiavo tragedy.
Seventy-nine-year-old Jimmy Chambers died in the early morning hours of Oct. 24 after the tracheotomy tubes that deliver oxygen from a ventilator to a hole in his neck became unhooked. Family members were told Chambers, a resident of the Anne Maria Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in North Augusta, S.C., apparently pulled the interlocking tubes apart.
"We're having it investigated. We're just incredulous," Chambers' daughter, Deanna Potter, told WND in reference to her siblings. "The last time I saw dad he was blowing me a kiss. I blew him one and he blew one back."
The retired dispatcher for Holland Motor Express died approximately 10 hours later. His death certificate indicates he died of "natural causes."
"Apparently, suffocation is a 'natural cause' when you're on a ventilator. We're contesting that," said Potter. "He suffocated. He didn't just pass away. He struggled and fought. And I'm just so angry."
Potter estimates it would have taken 10 to 14 minutes for her father, deprived of oxygen, to fall unconscious, and questions why the nursing home staff didn't come to his aid.
"The oxygen-saturation meter and his ventilator both would have had alarms going off. Four-thirty, five o'clock in the morning you'd think someone would hear this," she added. "That's the thing that really bothers me and makes me suspicious."
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
Yeah, my Dad looked into Hospice care for my Mom. Unfortunately they would not help with her because she did not want to stop all treatments other than pallitive. That is my only qualm with hospice.
They did have a visiting nurse thru Medicare (I think it was thru Medicare). But, they were unreliable at best. Mom didn't want to go into the hospital or a nursing home (I personaly think she was afraid, altho she never actually said that). I'll tell you one thing. My Dad and my FIL have been role models of taking the in sickness and in health part of the wedding vows seriously. God Bless em.
susie
IMO, we are already there.
Yeah, we are. When a site like FR has a group of people who believe in this, we're in trouble.
As gridlock said, we've moved from people believing in a default state of life to a default state of death. Our instinct is to fight for life. When we are injured, our bodies naturally struggle to repair the damage, struggle to breathe, we fight. We spend countless dollars on medical research, medical treatments, etc. to find a way to survive just a bit longer. It's just natural that we work to live. Yet in the face of all the daily evidence that we fight to live, society has determined that those unable to speak for themselves would rather choose death.
You're exactly right. It's easy to sit back in a moment of reflection and imagine the circumstances that you would or would not want to live with and to make a living will based on those thoughts. It's a vastly different thing to look at death and say, if there's a chance, I want to take it. There are bunches of people in the health care profession and out of it who think that a person shouldn't change their mind. Our family compares it to the man who wants to commit suicide, reaches the edge of the precipice and decides to live. Then someone behind him says, "You made up your mind" and then gives him a push off of the edge. The merchants of death are in hospitals, nursing homes and all over the places where you would expect to find healing.
You have said it so well. When we are in good health, we look at the future and think, well, I wouldn't want to live like that, that's not living. But I have found from personal experience that when it comes right down to making the decision when we're IN the circumstances we hoped we'd never have to face, that somehow you summon the courage to give it another shot. It's only when there's truly no hope left that we begin to succumb. There is almost always some ray of hope left, as there was for your father. Most people are really born to fight for their life. He wanted more time with his family. He wanted to give it everything he had. If that meant being reliant on significant help, so be it. Life is a gift and a blessing. He recognized that. I'm very very sorry that your mother didn't see it through his newly informed eyes. She could only see it from her point of view. She will have to live with her actions. I hope she doesn't regret them, but if she does, I hope that your family can find peace and unity again.
Meant to ping you to my last post, too. Your words were very eloquent.
A lot of people don't realize that after the hospital gives you morphine for the pain, you're unable to communicate so you can't make your wishes known, and you can go downhill quickly. The family members, when consulted, are anxious to spare the person pain and thus acquiesce to no resuscitation.
It is already common and has been for years. All you have to do is walk into any nursing home and see that everyone is drugged to the gills so that they don't give the workers there any trouble. Having worked in a nursing home in the sixties, I can tell you nothing has changed which is why my parents didn't go to one.
The biggest problem that I have with Living Wills is that they are not revokable when you most need them so. Once you pass the power of your life or death into anothers hands you have given up all rights.
Thanks for the ping.
My lawyer was after me to sign one of these things. I told her I would sign one if it was time limited to one year, to be renewed or void every year on my birthday. She told me that that was a useless provision because if you failed to renew it, it would still have effect, no matter what language was used saying it was void after a certain date.
Reading this story makes me realize she's a pretty good lawyer, because she's absolutely right.
I know. I also know that an untold number of deaths in nursing homes and hospitals occur when a dosage of pain-killer is 'accidently' (wink,wink,nudge,nudge) given after a private talk a family member will have with a care-giver.
When I first heard that my parents had signed Living Wills, I didn't think anything about it. Then during a trip to Florida we had to admit my Daddy to the hospital and had to sign some DNR forms. It just about killed me to do it because that was when I first became aware of his mortality. He had terminal cancer and it had metastasized throughout his body and even though we knew it was a matter of time, it was as if I were signing a death warrant for him. Luckily it was not used on that visit. Daddy's last two days were spent in a wonderful hospice center in Broward County. Momma said that even though he was not concious, they made him extremely comfortable.
When my Momma moved her to South Carolina, our attorney told her that the Living Will that she had drawn up in Florida would not be legal in the State of South Carolina. So she drew up another. Momma too had cancer. She stayed at home until her death. The night before she died, she asked me to let her go. I didn't want to know to what she was referring but the next morning she was taking her last breathes, I did get to tell her that I loved her before she left.
I don't recommend Living Wills because each case is different, each person fights back in their own way. If a person wants to die, they will and nothing anyone does will stop it from happening.
Each of us has a time here on earth and when GOD wants us to come home, when our job here is finished, we will go to HIM.
There are always "Angels of Death" who think that they are helping the patient. That they have a calling to do so. They are murderers, plain and simple.
The Hospice people at the Hollings Center here in the Tri-County area are wonderful. I wish that we had stayed with them instead of going to the Summerville group. They had just formed and the people that I had to deal with were surly and wouldn't help.
One of the most important things that Hospice Givers do is give respite for the caregiver at home. That contributes just as much to the patients well being as good health care.
In 2 weeks I'm taking my family down to Dunedin to see my Father-in-law who has alzheimers and is said to be in a good home.
I have family in that area. Have a good trip and be safe.
How long before the hair sample can be processed? Mom was smart to get a sample. Thanks for the ping!
It is too bad that the living will Mr. Chambers had signed from Iowa was considered legal in South Carolina. It apparently is nearly impossible to revoke one once it is issued. Living wills are dangerous documents, and not the "life-saver" that they are made out to be.
Thats what bothers me. If my Momma's was illegal because it was out of state, how can one from Iowa be legal?
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