# Michael Schiavo: Hero **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 7, 2005, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933 "2005-08-07T00:32:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/101 "2005-08-09T05:13:44Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Maybe everything anyone has ever said about Mr. Shiavo (beyond his CPR skills) is pure BS. About 90% of it seems to be. > [@](#): > > Maybe his exgirl friend is a whackjob and all the nurses lied about him. I don’t know. I recall the “is the bitch dead yet?” nurse turning out to be a liar, so a wackjob in this case wouldn’t be the first. Has anybody mentioned the guardian _ad litem_’s testimony that Terri never had so much as a bedsore in all the years she spent incapacitated? There’s another sign of what a bad guy he was… ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/102 "2005-08-09T05:17:41Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Who cares if he euthanized some cats? What is that supposed to prove? As a pet owner I don’t know how to explain it to you. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/103 "2005-08-09T05:18:29Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > CPR is rarely successful in reviving a person whose heart has stopped? From what orifice did you pull that nugget of insight from? The purpose of CPR is to maintain blood flow to the brain until help arrives. The only way someone could screw it up would be to forget to check for a blocked air passage. Even if air isn’t introduced into the lungs the chest compressions will keep the oxygenated blood flowing for some time. > > I think you’re confusing the debate over the decision to let Terri die with Michael Shiavo’s “heroics”. [Cite.](http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/WSIHW000/9273/35323/372221.html?d=dmtHMSContent) > [@](#): > > You may have the impression from television shows or movies that CPR is a highly effective emergency treatment for anyone who has collapsed. It surprises many to learn that the dramatic CPR results they often see are a myth. In fact, CPR is rarely effective, and only in certain circumstances is its success rate anything other than dismal. This is not to say it should be abandoned in dire situations, but in general, the expectations of loved ones or those performing CPR are often higher than the situation warrants. I’ve been getting recertified in CPR every year for quite a few years. It’s required for my job now and I was a lifeguard in high school. I repeat, CPR is rarely successful in reviving anyone who has gone into cardiac arrest. They tell you that as part of the training so that you don’t get your expectations too high. Hopefully, **Dr. J** will come back here and help set you straight on this. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/104 "2005-08-09T05:22:23Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Heresay is a 2 way street. What’s your point? That everything Michael says is true and everybody else is a bullshit liar. Well gee, I’m convinced. I’ve read the evidence. Have you? The wikipedia article, admittedly biased towards Michael, offers direct links to the evidence. The site by that Florida lawyer offers direct links to the evidence. (You have search capability, look for the many Schiavo threads - that site has been linked to countless times.) I don’t remember that affadavit being displayed as evidence anywhere. Find me somewhere where it has been used as evidence. Many judges, many courts, and lastly the Florida Attorney General have decided that evidence against Michael is non-existant. For all I know, you wrote that web page yourself. Prove that it’s meaningful. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/105 "2005-08-09T05:26:32Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic I’ve been getting recertified in CPR every year for quite a few years. It’s required for my job now and I was a lifeguard in high school. I repeat, CPR is rarely successful in reviving anyone who has gone into cardiac arrest. They tell you that as part of the training so that you don’t get your expectations too high. Hopefully, **Dr. J** will come back here and help set you straight on this.[/QUOTE] As I stated above, and as your training should have told you, it is intended to maintain blood flow to the brain until help arrives. There’s even discussion as to the need for filling the chest with air. The chest compressions are the most important aspect at the start of CPR. We must be taking different classes. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/106 "2005-08-09T05:34:48Z")
> [@This Year's Model](#): > > I’ve read the evidence. Have you? The wikipedia article, admittedly biased towards Michael, offers direct links to the evidence. The site by that Florida lawyer offers direct links to the evidence. (You have search capability, look for the many Schiavo threads - that site has been linked to countless times.) I don’t remember that affadavit being displayed as evidence anywhere. Find me somewhere where it has been used as evidence. Many judges, many courts, and lastly the Florida Attorney General have decided that evidence against Michael is non-existant. For all I know, you wrote that web page yourself. Prove that it’s meaningful. I already read the wikipedia version and I didn’t understand the bias towards Michael. Maybe I don’t understand the nature of wikipedia. I just assumed they would attempt neutrality. I’ve poured through both sides of the Schiavo debate (which I’m interested in rehashing). This thread is about Mr. Shiavo’s heroism and unless someone can dismiss his alleged behavior I will accept a percentage of what has been stated as true. That’s how I feel. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/107 "2005-08-09T05:35:41Z")
Yes, it’s intended to try to get some blood into the brain until help arrives…but it’s _rarely effective_. It almost never gets the heart restarted and the person usually dies anyway. Did you read my cite? Manual CPR is a desperation measure, a Hail Mary. a last ditch effort. It usually doesn’t work unless the paramedics get there _extremely_ quickly. Yoiu need some better training because it sounds like they’re keeping you in the dark about some things. You also ignored my point that we don’t know how long it had been since Michael had received any CPR training. Maybe it was high school. Should he have still been expected to remember it under stress? Is anyone who doesn’t remember CPR training for the rest of their lives a criminal? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/108 "2005-08-09T05:36:14Z")
That would be “which I’m\*\* NOT \*\* interested in rehashing”. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/109 "2005-08-09T05:52:23Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Yes, it’s intended to try to get some blood into the brain until help arrives…but it’s _rarely effective_. It almost never gets the heart restarted and the person usually dies anyway. Did you read my cite? Manual CPR is a desperation measure, a Hail Mary. a last ditch effort. It usually doesn’t work unless the paramedics get there _extremely_ quickly. > > Yoiu need some better training because it sounds like they’re keeping you in the dark about some things. > > You also ignored my point that we don’t know how long it had been since Michael had received any CPR training. Maybe it was high school. Should he have still been expected to remember it under stress? Is anyone who doesn’t remember CPR training for the rest of their lives a criminal? I’m not sure what “rarely effective” means in your argument but I’ll concede it for arguments sake. Maybe I expect too much from people but I don’t know anyone who couldn’t do CPR (from scratch) and more importantly, wouldn’t try with some assistance. Nothing in Mr. Shiavo’s interviews indicated he was too flustered or forgetful to do it. I’ve been in the situation where I was going to have to give someone the Heimlich manuever. It’s natural to intercede in a situation like that. And I wasn’t ignoring your point about the CPR training time line. I thought I answered it indirectly that he should have made the attempt. ---
**Author:** ![Leviosaurus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Leviosaurus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leviosaurus)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/110 "2005-08-09T05:59:57Z")
FWIW - I like the \*idea \* of Michael Schiavo. I like the image of him that most of the people in this thread have expressed - a guy who stood by his wife through hell to make sure her final wishes were carried out. But I don’t know anything about Michael Schiavo the actual _person_. I’ve never met him, I don’t know anything about him personally, just stories reported through a media which is biased towards sensationalism. (Any network.) While the Schiavo case was going on, when anyone asked my opinion, I responded “I don’t know these people and it’s none of my business.” I regret that so many politicians, celebrities, reporters and columnists made this poor woman’s demise into such a circus, when it was _absolutely none of their damn business_. If I’m ever in such a state, my first and primary request (which I’ve already expressed in writing to my family) is that the politicans [stay the hell out of it](http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/images/war.332.gif). Please return to your regularly scheduled flamefest… ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/111 "2005-08-09T09:04:46Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > I read nothing about money in his post, are you introducing new material without answering the old. Oh, man, and I’d just had my irony meter fitted at great expense with a new megagauge reading waay up past 11, and now the damn thing’s gone “SPROING!!!”, it’s got springs hanging out, the glass is busted and the needle looks like a corkscrew. ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/112 "2005-08-09T12:12:55Z")
**Dio** is right that CPR is less effective than most people would expect, especially in relatively untrained hands. But the most obvious reason (to me) why Schiavo didn’t do CPR on his wife is that he was freaked out and not thinking clearly. I say this is obvious to me because it’s the rule rather than the exception when I see patients who collapsed at home; even those famiy members trained in CPR rarely think to administer it, at least not immediately. Maybe I should start telling them that they’re all bad people who wanted their loved one to die? > [@](#): > > Maybe I expect too much from people but I don’t know anyone who couldn’t do CPR (from scratch) and more importantly, wouldn’t try with some assistance. Yeah, you do expect too much from people who have just watched a loved one collapse. Also, people who have only seen CPR done on “ER” will probably do more harm than good by trying; in particular, they almost certainly won’t give effective chest compressions. Keep in mind also that Terri had to have been breathing on her own during all this; otherwise, she wouldn’t have survived the ten minutes or so until the paramedics arrived. It is usually the fact that a patient is not breathing that triggers one’s response to do CPR. Even if he felt for a pulse, I can tell you from vast experience that feeling for pulses in a tense situation can be an inexact science. Put simply, there are many reasons for Schiavo’s failure to do CPR that are far more likely than him being a bad person who wanted his wife to die. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/113 "2005-08-09T12:46:00Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > This has got to be the most inane statement I have ever seen posted on the board. “Until **death** do we part”, “in sickness and in health,” etc, etc. Her brain was dead. Fucking dead. I s’pose there’ll always be someone who wants to sit around talking to a mass of cells with no personality, but most people agree that at that point, your marriage partner has left the building. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/114 "2005-08-09T12:54:32Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > Her brain was dead. Fucking dead. I s’pose there’ll always be someone who wants to sit around talking to a mass of cells with no personality, but most people agree that at that point, your marriage partner has left the building. No they don’t, most people have more respect for their partner, and more faith in God. I worked in hospice care for a few years and saw dozens of them, then I worked in a hospital for several more years and saw a lot more. How much experience have you had with dead and dying people? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/115 "2005-08-09T12:58:51Z")
Most people have faith in God? I wasn’t aware that the majority of the planet followed one religion. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/116 "2005-08-09T12:58:56Z")
We’ve been over this so much already. The weakness of the case against Michael Schiavo is implicit in its nature – it’s against Michael Schiavo, judging, second-guessing, criticizing, lying, and gossipping about the man instead of taking a clear position on the bigger issue of why it is necessary or important to keep a body alive when the brain is dead. I find the nature of the criticism disgusting – that they should glibly judge a man for moving on years after his wife has been brain dead is the lowest and vilest of ad hominem attacks. It’s disgusting and un-Christian and amoral. The notion of walking a mile in a man’s moccasins is a good one here. You should watch your spouse flop around in a hospital bed for 10 years and then have a bunch of strangers tell you what you ought to do for your spouse and yourself, then come back and judge Michael Schiavo. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/117 "2005-08-09T13:14:15Z")
> [@cricetus](#): > > We’ve been over this so much already. The weakness of the case against Michael Schiavo is implicit in its nature – it’s against Michael Schiavo, judging, second-guessing, criticizing, lying, and gossipping about the man instead of taking a clear position on the bigger issue of why it is necessary or important to keep a body alive when the brain is dead. I find the nature of the criticism disgusting – that they should glibly judge a man for moving on years after his wife has been brain dead is the lowest and vilest of ad hominem attacks. It’s disgusting and un-Christian and amoral. The notion of walking a mile in a man’s moccasins is a good one here. You should watch your spouse flop around in a hospital bed for 10 years and then have a bunch of strangers tell you what you ought to do for your spouse and yourself, then come back and judge Michael Schiavo. Your post is not relavant to the reality of the situation, there were doctors who said she wasn’t brain dead. What you say about others is more relavant to you. But she is dead now, so no amount of talk will change anything. She is in the spirit world and doing fine as all do. Whatever Michael’s part in this sad situation was He will know when his time comes whether or not it was acceptable. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/118 "2005-08-09T13:14:57Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > She is in the spirit world and doing fine as all do. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/119 "2005-08-09T13:16:26Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Most people have faith in God? I wasn’t aware that the majority of the planet followed one religion. Well, now you know, He just has a hundred different names, but still just one God. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933/120 "2005-08-09T13:19:44Z")
Help me, **dropzone** , help me… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-schiavo-hero/315933.md?page=7)