Wake Up!

Recently, we have witnessed the terrible tragedy in Florida with the death of Terri Schiavo. Many doctors declared that there was no way that she could ever get better and that pulling out the feeding tube was an act of mercy instead of murder. Yet a few mere weeks have passed since she has died and now we have hard proof that recovery from a coma and brain damage is possible.

Donald Herbert was a firefighter in Buffalo, New York. He was in a burning building in 1995 when the roof collapsed, crushing him and depriving him of oxygen for about six minutes. This resulted in a semi-coma which left him blind, unable to speak and without memory. Most of his doctors expressed little hope in his recovery, stating that most brain damaged patient who will recover do so relatively quickly. A New York Neurologist said, “With the lack of improvement for a decade, the prognosis is terrible. It is essentially one in a million”. Yet on May 5 of this year, he began to speak lucidly again and has had periods of clarity and lucidity since then. He knew his wife and asked for her by name, as well as his son, who was three when his dad was injured. Although he had much of his memory, he was stunned that a decade had passed since he had been injured. This dramatic recovery came after Dr. Jamil Ahmed prescribed a new combination of drugs to stimulate the brain's neurotransmitters.

Furthermore, Mr. Herbert is not the only one to recover from a coma/brain-damaged situation. Terry Wallis recovered from a coma that had lasted for 19 years by saying “hi” to his mother then asking for a Pepsi. Gary Dockery, a police officer in Tennessee was brain damaged in 1988 shooting. He began speaking to his family one day in 1996, recounting times spent camping and telling jokes. All of these examples stirred my thinking as well as my emotions.

If it is possible that these men recovered from their medical problems, what was the judge thinking when he gave the okay to pull Terri’s feeding tube? Obviously, he did not know that it was possible for Terri to recover or he simply did not care. This also raises significant questions about Michael Schiavo’s motives, especially since he had already “shacked” up with another women while his wife was injured. In a day and age where this kind of moral action is the norm, it may not seem odd. But in conjunction with the fact that Mr. Schiavo will receive money from Terri’s life insurance, it raised question marks in my mind and in the minds of many other conservatives. Perhaps we have simple taken one small step towards an euthanasia policy, as well as a giant step away from the value of life. Perhaps we have simply become lax in our protest of moral and civil wrongs in our society. Whichever is the case, one thing is certain; a review of Michael Schiavo’s motives and action over the past two decades must be investigated to see if the truth really is known or if it must be uncovered. We must not keep silent about this evil because if we do we will, by default, be condoning it.