Newlywed & father-to-be: Paralyzed in fall on Saturday; kills himself on Sunday

Yes and 24 hours is an extremely short amount of time to be able to discern one from the other.

Mine allows that kind of thing if I would have a reasonable chance of recovery.

Like I said earlier in this thread, I’m guessing that we just plain old don’t know the whole story.

Because of how often things change in the first few days, weeks and even months after an incomplete spinal cord injury, that is why I question a concrete diagnosis less than 24 hours post-injury. Spinal cord injury is really a ‘wild west frontier’ of medicine; we’re learning more everyday but we still don’t know so, so much. There has been much speculation as to this man’s spinal cord being completely severed but I didn’t read anything about that in the article.

And I haven’t said anything about taking away this man’s right to end his life. Nothing at all. I have said I understand his feelings and his decision completely.

I have been clean & sober for 23+ years. So I resent this personal attack.

I have a D- 214, do you? Any actual ‘getting shot at combat’ time?

Please show where these people we are talking about did anything legally, morally, spiritually wrong in any way that is not just your opinion.

As I stated above, if you are ready to carry the monetary load, the spiritual responsibility, the taking care of this person, his family & are willing to go against their wishes & being liable financially for the pain & suffering if they were right all along, and all your interference does is make that even more intense, then I withdraw my objection to doing that for them.

My wife, kids, siblings, (7even) of us and friends etc. would not allow this wrongheaded decision, in our opinion, you want to instill in my life or death decisions would not be allowed for ½ a second.

No, it isn’t. Sometimes it’s hard to judge the extent of the damage - so you wait- and sometimes it is mostly obvious. In this case, the doctors were quite willing to give strong assurance that he was fucked as far as using his body again and in my experience they are usually cautious with that pronouncement.

Having read this thread, and some of the links, I’ve come to the conclusion that even though the family’s actions seemed hasty they were in accord with what Bowers wanted. He had said beforehand he’d not want to live in a wheelchair.

If the family had waited a few days to awaken Bowers, to then present him with his condition, chances are that the story would leak out, despite patient privacy requirements. And someone may have tried to step in and, somehow, interfere with the family, or with Bower’s decision.

He chose the manner of his death. It ws not suicide.I also figure we don’t know all the details, and whatever they are they are none of our business.

I hope people leave the family in peace, and hope to God they will never have to face a choice like that.

I would very much love to have the doctors give a press conference and point to the medical evidence they had that said he was 100%, totally and conclusively fucked. The day after the accident he lasted five hours without his breathing tube. He could talk, move his shoulders, no brain damage - I mean, I’m not saying he’d be up doing the foxtrot anytime soon; there was definitely a very difficult time ahead - but can I really be so crazy as to think that maybe, just maybe, the family & doctors could have waited a couple of days, talk to some specialists, see how things were, then decide what to do?

If ‘waiting a few days would make things difficult from a legal sense’, a) perhaps there’s a reason for that, and b) encouraging someone to die right away ‘before it gets all tricky’ strikes me as a really really bad idea.

Do we know exactly what he meant? 'cause I doubt he meant just ‘if I’m paralyzed from the waist down but am if sound mind and body, kill me’. When healthy young males think about the ‘a life worth living’ scenario, I’d wager they’re usually thinking of a ‘brain dead/vegetative state’ scenario. This guy hadn’t suffered any brain damage. And as was said before - ‘would rather die than live in a wheelchair’ was his hypothetical choice. He had zero chance to even begin to grasp the actual reality.

I suspect this was the case from the medical side of it.

With all due respect, fuck that. A goddamn press conference? There are a whole pile of checks and balances on medical decisions and making sure dragonash and the public at large gets to see the doctors sweat on tv is not one of them.

Yes, there is a reason for that : a number of people want to impose their morals on me and would prefer to feel good while I suffer for decades on an hospital bed than the other way around.

I’ll tell you what would happen if I ended up a quadraplegic and had the misfortune of being able to breath by myself. Euthanasia wouldn’t be an option, regardless how constantly I could beg for it. Besides, I don’t have a spouse or children. There are exactly two people in the world who care enough for me to be really bothered by my predicament. Neither has the means or ability to take care of me, nor should they feel any obligation to do so. What would happen is that I would linger on an hospice bed, with as main distraction ass wippings by a stranger, until, after I don’t know how many years, I will mercily be killed by some nasty infection.

Meanwhile, those people would pat themselves on the shoulder, congratulating themselves for having made sure that life was properly respected.

That’s one extremely good reason to decide within 5 hours. Otherwise my situation could improve, I could start to breathe again, and then I would be fucked.

Presumably, his relatives had a clue about what he meant. And apparently they were right.

Anyway, for how long should I have to experiment life as a quadraplegic before people are satisfied that I’m grasping reality? What exactly make people think that their opinion about what I had in mind should prevail over my previously expressed wishes? Let alone their opinion about what life as a quadraplegic is worth over a reiterated wish when I’m actually facing this situation?

Christ, fear of the probably amazing HIPAA fines/jailing/loss of licenses would be enough to cause most hospitals to figuratively bar the doors and tell the world to go fuck off. Not gonna happen. The hospital is literally unable to say jack shit about it, and I have suspicions that your average person not involved in the case can’t scream “malpractice!” here, at least in any fashion that would trigger some kind of investigation. Perhaps one of his extended family will be so kind as to dig up that particular can of worms to satisfy anyone with morbid curiosity about why exactly despair struck them all so deeply.

This is a perfect example of what someone might think before becoming injured. This idea of what you imagine life would be like as a quadriplegic is certainly not what the lives are like for thousands of quadriplegics who live independent lives; many of whom probably shared some version of your vision of paralyzed life prior to getting hurt.

Do you think there is some level of disability where it would be reasonable for someone to say, “Sorry, I just don’t think that’s the life for me.”

Being a quad with a personal assistant, in my private home, not tied to a vent or machines, and able to be active most days out of week? Doesn’t sound like the worse life ever. I wouldn’t like it, but I wouldn’t kill myself over it.

Being a quad on a vent, invalid and fragile, institutionalized and completely dependent on others, and unable to control anything in my environment? With few visitors and nothing but loneliness and hurt to keep me stimulated? Doesn’t sound like my cup of tea. Yet and still, I’m sure there is someone who’d say this is a hasty assessment. They’d say I’d eventually manage to find happiness even under such gray circumstances and that I would regret killing myself. Should I take their word for it, even though my gut says they’re full of it?

If someone talked me into staying alive by painting the first scenario but I ended up with the second scenario instead, I’d be pissed off. I’d be even more pissed off if I later found out that the second scenario is a whole lot more common than the first. Which I suspect it is.

Do you have a personal cut-off for which you would feel comfortable saying, “Nope, not gonna do it!” Life in a wheelchair alone wouldn’t be sufficient for me. But I’m thinking anything requiring life-long institutionalization and life-support systems would.

A press conference? Nobody owes you or the rest of the public an explanation. A man and his family made a brave and difficult decision. The idea that he should be made to suffer even one extra second or that his family should be subjected to judgment from people who didn’t even know him is disgusting.

And where did this vision come from? It certainly wasn’t the prognosis for the man in the article.

And we know this…how, exactly? Barely a day had passed. We don’t know jack shit. There may be strong evidence for a prognosis, but…five hours without his tube, just *the day after *the accident. Able to speak. No brain damage. You’re telling me there was zero prospect of some improvement from that?

Hell, at the very least I’d watch all my favorite movies one more time before kicking off.

BullSHIT they don’t. Do you think when, why, and how hospitals decide to let people kill themselves is such a trivial manner, it’s not worth discussing? Just leave it to the doctors because ‘well, they’re the experts’?

If you think doctors are infallible experts that would never be on the ethically wrong side of an issue - Gila Regional Medical Center. Just sayin’.

Sure; it’s something my wife and I discussed. As you can imagine there are no clear-cut lines, but generally speaking, mental faculty would play a larger part in our decision vs physical (in)capabilities.

But that’s completely irrelevant. The guy in this story, his decision itself isn’t ‘wrong’ - it’s his decision. I’m saying that not near enough time had passed to be confident he had sufficient information and was in the right frame of mind to actually make any decision at all. I can’t fathom that the family members (at the very least) and doctors (hello? ethics board?) didn’t at least voice a concern about this.

I’d wager close to 100% of quads wish for death in the immediate aftermath of their accident. There are an awful lot of quads out there thankful that nobody took them up on it. Given that ratio, I can’t believe anyone would disagree that gosh, maybe waiting a day or two wouldn’t be such a bad idea. If things were as bad as you insist they were, what in the world would be different about pulling the plug on, say, Wednesday instead of Sunday?

As been explained by somebody in the medical field, the prognosis was likely so poor as to allow for a reasonable decision to be made.

You don’t seem to grasp the horror that was presented to this person. For all practical purposes his head may as well be in a jar. He lost all control of his body and his life. ALL.

DragonAsh, some people come to a decision that is final. They will not budge from their choice. It has been made, they are comfortable with it, and that is the end of it. Decided. Done. They do not need a cooling off period. Very simple.

I respect his decision 100%. Being a parapapegic is a whole different thing than being a quadrapalegic dependent on machines to live. He probably didn’t need to do a lot of deep, soul searching introspection to know what life for he and his family will be like.

He chose to let go and set his family free.

Why are you against choice?

This, along with what it will do to all the people he loves.

I think some people don’t get how sure you can be about stuff - even with uncertainty attached. Some people are willing to fight/cling to small chances. I’m not one of them.

Even if there is a 90% chance I would recover after a year - I’m done. I’m not interested in being conscious on a ventilator. You don’t need to wake me up. If you do -

“Well DataX - we aren’t sure how exactly things will go, but there are a lot of options available to you.”
“Do any of them equal me walking out of the hospital without going through some rehab process?”
“Well no, but with a lot of hard work…”
“Nope, not interested”
“Take some time and think about it.”
“I did - I know the answer”

What exactly is there to think about? Others are welcome to weight various factors. Some of us don’t need to - and there is no drug in the world that I have ever been on that would have prevented me from answering in the same way (except anesthesia perhaps - which I guess I wouldn’t answer at all).

Also - the argument of you might feel different afterwards. Of course you would - everyone does - studies show (well at least one) after six months people that have been paralyzed have the same level of happiness as they everyone else. Doesn’t mean I am doing it. I’m sure lots of people who go through torture are glad they couldn’t have killed themselves. And I’m equally sure those same people when faced with the option in the future would off themselves.

It really isn’t rocket science to many of us.