Would an ER doctor actually consider this?

Factual Questions
1

Some of you have probably seen my posts about the accident I was in in 1995. There is something that my wife told me about the event that I question. I look to the teeming millions for opinions. In my accident I went through the windshield of my truck and I got what they call a traumatic brain injury (closed head).

When I was brought to the hospital, I had been resuscitated several times already. The ER physician had to entubate me and put me on a ventilator and respirator in order to keep me alive. My wife was brought to the hospital shortly. She was very upset, but I believe that she could think relatively clearly. She told me that when she first saw me, one of her first thoughts was, “I’m going to have to make the decision to pull the plug or not!” The ER physician told her that the outlook for my survival was not good and my wife says that she asked the doc why the decision was made to put me on full life support. My wife says that the doctor said that she did it because I am an organ donor. I was 32 when this happened and in good health at the time and other than some cuts and scrapes there were no other injuries. I was only brain damaged.

Now, I’m not complaining, things have worked out well for me. I’m just curious, would an ER doctor, given a patient with little chance for survival, put the patient on life-support to keep the organs viable. Am I still alive today because I am an organ donor. I know now that if you are an organ donor in South Carolina and they find you dead by the side of the road, they cannot harvest organs until your next of kin does the paperwork!!!

2

It wouldn’t surprise me to find it’s standard practice. If they didn’t do it that way, there’d be almost no organs available.

3

I think they would do this even if you didn’t have an organ donor card in your wallet, in the hope that your next-of-kin would decide to make you an organ donor posthumously.

4

Firstly, if they found you dead on the side of the road, you wouldn’t be a candidate for organ donation.

Secondly, with no directive to NOT provide life-saving and heroic measures (i.e. a Do Not Rescusitate order) everything possible will be done. That you did recover to a high level of functioning is a testament to the fact that even the grimmest of cases can turn out okay in the end.

I’m not surprised that the ER docs had you on a ventilator, but I am surprised that this is the reason given. I would have said, “Because he’s 32, he has a chance at recovering”