It was one of the most profound experiences of my life. I tell you what initially you are thinking this is too!!! weird , then you go into nurse mod and do what you need to do. It was overwhelming. I remember I shook and cried the whole way home it was emotionally exhausting. I am sure that the family was even more overwhelmed than I was. What a BLESSING!!!!!
That is amazing. There was a huge medical law case over a physician who basically put a DNR order on an infant who - if I remember correctly (I watched it on TV) died of a SIDs case at home... it had been brought into the ER, where the hospital staff and a well known Pediatrician had attempted (unsuccessfully) to code the baby. The parents said their goodbyes to their child and left.
Apparently, the nurses walked in a short time later after the family left, to the place where baby had been kept for the family to view the body, and the baby was breathing and had a heartbeat - spontaneously. However, the breathing needed to be supported - this child was going to need supportive therapy if he was going to survive. But it was spontaneous!! Which - before - they had nothing spontaneous to work with upon arrival to the ER (my understanding from the show). The nurses immediately notified the Pediatrician, and ER staff began to code the baby again, and started to notify the family. However, the well known Pediatrician immediately put the squash on resusitative efforts on the baby - he told them NOT to code the baby, and told them NOT to tell the family what had happened or that they baby was breathing or having a heartbeat because and they had already "said goodbye" and because he thought that that was "cruel" and that the baby would most likely be brain damaged. Which, would be true... conventional wisdom would tell us that if blood supply is cut off to an individuals brain, either inside the womb or outside of it, then yes, usually, brain damange does occur. We have seen women who have abruptions who have severely brain damaged children and children who have very mild defect. It really varies. We have people who have completely coded (heart stops, they stop breathing) some have a large amount of brain damage, some have very little. It all is depends on how much or how little oxygen reaches the brain during those times. Very sad.
There were even allegations, I think, by one nurse that she stepped out of the room and left the baby alone with him while this was happening, and that when she stepped back in that he was smothering the child. It was VERY nasty. There was allegations that there was out and out arguing that night in the ER because the staff wanted to start coding the baby again when the baby started to spontaneously breath and have a heartbeat. Of course they wanted to save the child - or at least make a quick call to the family and ask them what to do for their son! That probably would have been the ethical thing to do.
The doctor was apparently was sited for unprofessional and unethical conduct, but never lost his license. The parents were of course, crushed. He continued to have a thriving pediatric practice. He stated that he felt that the child would have no quality of life, so he it felt was better to let the child die "peacefully". I think that is MURDER! I think God gave the child life again... I think it was a miracle, and he squashed it - especially if he did smother him. The nurse they interviewed seemed very sincere. Very sad. If anything happened like that to my child or if I saw that, I don't know what I would do.
