CA - Parents Of Toddler Declared Brain-Dead Convinced He’s Still Alive

[SophieRose]

Here is a video put out by the Life Legal Defense Fund. The mother says that a New Jersey home will take Israel, but he first needs breathing and feeding tubes. Same problem that Jahi's family had, cant' find a hospital to perform the surgeries. Jahi left the hospital without the surgery, was it finally done back east?

[video=youtube;QM8e1TNOpIM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM8e1TNOpIM[/video]

 

[jjenny]

I recall watching a show recently that showed proof that Brain dead, is not necessarily "Dead". So I am not so sure things are cut and dry any longer. I also recall one where a supposedly Brain Dead person came back to recover..So I don't trust the medical criteria 100 percent. JMO.

Brian dead is dead. Once brain dies it is impossible to recover.

 

[K_Z]

Here is a video put out by the Life Legal Defense Fund. The mother says that a New Jersey home will take Israel, but he first needs breathing and feeding tubes. Same problem that Jahi's family had, cant' find a hospital to perform the surgeries. Jahi left the hospital without the surgery, was it finally done back east?

Jahi’s body (with a death certificate) was released to her mother from UCSF without the hospital being forced to place the tracheostomy or g-tube, after several court battles. These tubes were placed at an “undisclosed location”, presumably prior to transport to New Jersey. Jahi’s body was taken in (I don’t want to say “admitted”, because I’m not sure that word is correct) by St. Peter’s Children’s Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ, which is a catholic hospital system. She remained there for a period of months, and now is in an apartment in NJ receiving home care.

St. Peter’s Hospital apparently has decided not to take Israel Stinson. I think the publicity and vast licensing/ legal difficulties, staffing, etc were much more than they want to deal with. We’ll never know for sure, as they aren’t saying, and they can’t be compelled to accept a brain dead patient in transfer. The NJ laws that “compel” treatment of the brain dead don’t apply to transfer patients, as I understand them. I think they "could" accept him, but have chosen not to. The mother says they have located "a home" in NJ to take Israel.

The family tried to get their son into the same hospital that accepted Jahi McMath. She’s the Oakland girl declared brain dead back in 2013.

Her family won a court battle to have her moved to a New Jersey hospital, she is still on life support.

Israel was denied, but the reason hasn’t been released.

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2016...ning-out-of-time-for-son-declared-brain-dead/

 

[SophieRose]

Two more local Sacramento TV stations picked up the story.

http://fox40.com/2016/04/30/parents-fighting-to-keep-2-year-old-son-alive/

http://abc13.com/news/parents-sue-to-keep-son-on-life-support-after-asthma-attack/1317276/

 

[threecrazykids]

Comment says that
This is Israel responding to his mother tickling him.

[video=youtube;BhgGSjbb08Y]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhgGSjbb08Y[/video]

It just breaks my heart to pieces watching a video like this. The parents/family are simply in denial - which is completely understandable. They WANT to believe that every little movement equals proof that their baby is alive...who wouldn't. I'd said before in the Jahi case, I know myself - I would 100% be one of these mothers (at least at first). Thankfully I have a family who would not allow me to behave like this, if any sort of recovery was beyond hope. I can tell you, even ME watching this mother with her baby gives me pause - I don't think I would be able to do what she's doing. I couldn't sit there and "tickle" him saying "ok, now this time I want you to wake up" or "it's time to get ready for school - let's go". It's so, so sad...the mother simply can't comprehend that their baby is gone - they think that if they pray hard enough, or wait long enough, a miracle will occur and they are going to wake up. I just hope that someone can get through to them (even if it's weeks later) to come to the realization of truth - that the doctors aren't lying - this baby isn't going to just open his eyes one day and be just fine.

It's just extremely sad to me - these poor mothers who just can't accept that their baby is gone. I can't even imagine.

 

[watcher9]

I wonder if any of it will be live or have an inside reporter tweeting out.

The hearing is scheduled for Monday, May 2 at 1:30 p.m.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/05/02/kaiser-ordered-to-keep-infant-hooked-up-for-now.htm

 

[Eloise]

It's just extremely sad to me - these poor mothers who just can't accept that their baby is gone. I can't even imagine.

Agree with all of your post. Maybe time will show her that he's never waking up, or at least give her a chance to accept it.

It's very sad.

 

[1&2&3]

I watched the video several times. I didn't see any tongue movements, or mouth movements at all. His lower lip is pouched up and taped in what we call "fish lips" position, to prevent the oral endotracheal tube from eroding his mouth or lip edges. When they panned to the monitor, there is no respiratory effort over the vent.

Thank you K_Z for the video you posted re the Lazarus act/movement and all the information you followed up with.. After rewatching the video of Israel, for the umpteenth time, I agree with you that it was not his tongue. One's mind can deceive them!

You give us such informative information that the common layman has no way of knowing. I hope they have answered this mother's questions, explained every factor to her, shown her a normal brain picture and compared it to Israel's, as well as taking any step necessary to identify a working brain and a dead brain.

After this length of time, no changes, having seen all tests reports for a month, as difficult as it would be, I would have to accept the fact this child was gone. May he RIP.

 

[TeaTime]

I am not a doctor but if I were this baby's momma and he moved when I tickled him, I would fight to the death to keep him on life support.

 

[SophieRose]

http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/05/02/kaiser-to-keep-brain-dead-child-alive-for-now.htm

Mueller ruled Monday that a temporary restraining order keeping Stinson on life support issued Friday will stand whether the parties settle or continue the challenge in Federal Court. If the parties are unable to settle Tuesday, the case will resume May 11.

 

[Isabelle]

This is a very strange story so far:
"Israel Stinson was healthy and happy one minute and hooked up to a ventilator the next. His mother said he suffered a minor asthma attack. She took him to UC Davis Medical Center and it was there he stopped breathing and doctors determined he was brain-dead."

If it was just a 'minor asthma attack' and he was in the hospital, why would he be oxygen deprived? Wouldn't they give him oxygen and keep him breathing?

I was in the hospital with a major asthma attack. But they hooked me up with tubes of oxygen and force fed it into my lungs. If he was having a 'MINOR' attack, wouldn't that be enough to keep him breathing?

No asthma attack should ever be considered minor. I would have to guess than someone at the hospital caring for the child told the parents it was a minor asthma attack. These parents would be better off letting him go and hiring a malpractice attorney, because I bet a whole lot that someone was not paying attention and doing what is considered minimum standards.

 

[Hatfield]

One can't evaluate movements in a patient known to be definitively brain dead (no blood flow to the brain, and meets all other diagnostic criteria) without taking ALL the diagnostic information into account. If the child is brain dead (and I believe this child has had numerous imaging and diagnostic studies), then these kind of movements are spinal reflex arc movements-- no matter how heart wrenching or persuasive they may be to watch.

Watch the video from Brazil I linked above-- that man had the vent removed, and produced that classic Lazarus sign. He was unquestionably brain dead. If one googles "brain death and spinal reflex arc movements, there will be thousands of articles, videos, and explanations. I just did this and got 20,200 results returned.

Brain dead patients can have a lot of involuntary somatic shivering movements, limb movements, etc in response to touch, ventilator manipulations, being turned in bed, etc. It is very disconcerting for family to see this. It makes them think medical professionals are lying to them. It is our duty to explain what they are seeing, and give them the ENTIRE picture of what's going on, including diagnostic imaging and other studies. To compassionately teach.

The child Israel is beautiful, with not a mark on him except for the medical equipment. It's particularly and miserably hard for grieving parents to believe that what has happened inside his head is so catastrophic, when his heart beats, he is warm, and he is so beautiful. He cannot recover, at all. To accept that, for some, is to descend into a pit of madness and grief, from which they may not emerge. I get it. It's thoroughly, completely devastating. But no less true.

The courts are not helping in these situations, IMO. They only prolong false hope, encourage more litigation, foster confusion in the parents and the public, and delay the inevitable. These decisions, IMO, don't belong in courts.

Thank you so much for explaining this so well. There needs to be more education along these lines when there truly is no more hope that someone can recover.

I think the stories where someone miraculously comes out of a coma tend to keep everyone's hopes up that they may be the lucky ones where some miracle like that could happen for them. More education for the general public is needed for these subjects.

I especially agree with you about the bolded part.

Thanks again for explaining this so well.

 

[K_Z]

http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/05/02/kaiser-to-keep-brain-dead-child-alive-for-now.htm

Mueller ruled Monday that a temporary restraining order keeping Stinson on life support issued Friday will stand whether the parties settle or continue the challenge in Federal Court. If the parties are unable to settle Tuesday, the case will resume May 11.

In my opinion, the compromise that the judge in the Jahi McMath case made was rather brilliant-- and the closest thing to a "win" for both sides. That judge allowed the body of Jahi to be released to her mother's custody, while still on a ventilator. The death certificate remained legally in effect. The hospital and medical professionals were released from further liability, and Jahi's mother was able to have her daughter's body and make independent decisions about what to do next. The judge gave her control, and dignity, in an uncontrollable situation, with a devastating outcome for Jahi no matter what was done. I think it was the perfect compromise, given the state of denial and anger of Jahi's mother (IMO).

Perhaps such a compromise will be worked out for Israel's mother. I think it's grievously sad that this has been taken to the courts. But I understand why it happened this way. No one "wins" in these situations. I'm sad that there is such mistrust of health care by some people, and that we can't find a way to connect with them, and break thru their denial, at such a time of need. At times like this, I don't know if it is more compassionate to hope the child's heart stops soon, or hope that it goes on for a long time to help the families see the truth. In the latter, I think that these situations have the possibility to completely bankrupt families as they search for miracles, and snake oil predators arrive with false hope to take their money and trust. Look what's happened with Jahi's family. That is more sad, IMO, than burying your precious child.

 

[Eloise]

I think the stories where someone miraculously comes out of a coma tend to keep everyone's hopes up that they may be the lucky ones where some miracle like that could happen for them. More education for the general public is needed for these subjects.

Maybe that's part of it. Coma and brain death are two very different things, but I think it's a common misunderstanding that when a doctor says 'brain death' they're talking about something that's just like a really bad coma that they could wake up from. But brain death really is death.

 

[K_Z]

No asthma attack should ever be considered minor. I would have to guess than someone at the hospital caring for the child told the parents it was a minor asthma attack. These parents would be better off letting him go and hiring a malpractice attorney, because I bet a whole lot that someone was not paying attention and doing what is considered minimum standards.

I'm always very cautious to place any kind of "blame" for an outcome, based on media and family reports alone. None of us have seen any medical records for this child, and have no idea what really happened, or what was done at each hospital.

I really hesitate to even entertain the thought that anything was done "wrong", or negligently, or carelessly for this beautiful 2 year old. The simple fact is that despite all of the wonderful drugs and therapies at our disposal, people (and tragically, children) still DO die from such things as status asthmaticus, even if that is now a much rarer occurrence than years ago.

A death doesn't automatically mean that a health care provider made some kind of mistake. Here are just 2 scholarly articles that estimate that 250,000 people per year, worldwide, die from complications of status asthmaticus. Pediatric deaths from asthma have been increasing.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c.../medind.nic.in/icb/t10/i12/icbt10i12p1417.pdf

Asthma mortality is rising worldwide for reasons
poorly understood. Among American children aged 5
to 14 years, asthma death rates almost doubled from
1980 to 1995 (Fig 2). Other countries have observed
a similar increase in severity and mortality
(New Zealand, Canada).

https://www.ohsu.edu/xd/health/serv...residency/upload/Asthma-2001-Chest-review.pdf

I don't want to get too technical, but interested readers can use a browser to search for something like "child deaths from status asthmaticus" and find lots of information on the increases.

 

[SophieRose]

I don't understand how the toddler got sent to Kaiser (one article said parents requested it) when UC Davis Medical Center had started the tests for brain-death or may have even completed them. So now Kaiser is stuck with all the legal costs surrounding the case.

Also the mother or parents must have been in the Sacramento area when he had the asthma attack because Sacramento is about 40 minutes from their home in Vacaville. And then when IS was sent to a Kaiser, it was in Roseville in Placer County, about an hour away from Vacaville, when there is a Kaiser in Vacaville. I'm assuming the parents, or one of them, must have Kaiser insurance.

Thinking about it more, Kaiser would be paying his medical costs wherever he was if he had Kaiser insurance, but don't know about the legal costs.

 

[K_Z]

Two more local Sacramento TV stations picked up the story.

http://fox40.com/2016/04/30/parents-fighting-to-keep-2-year-old-son-alive/

http://abc13.com/news/parents-sue-to-keep-son-on-life-support-after-asthma-attack/1317276/

Sadly, the headlines for these 2 stories are part of the serious problem we have nationally with so many people having a poor understanding of brain death, and a mistrust of healthcare and professionals.

The headlines imply that the child is "alive" and on "life support", and that the evil hospital wants to "kill" the child. Life support is a lay term, not a medical term, and means vastly different things to different people. A more correct term is "somatic support" or "organ support". But that doesn't pull at people's heartstrings and make them mad at the evil hospitals and evil health care professionals that they want to portray as "killing" this beautiful child.

The media, with their irresponsible reporting and euphemisms, is tremendously responsible, IMO, for the state of confusion that so many citizens are in regarding what brain death "is" and "is not."

The media, IMO, very irresponsibly and unethically, encourages mistrust of the diagnosis of brain death withe the slant they put in their stories about these unfortunate families. And they encourage the NEXT family to ligitgate. They insert doubt into every story like this, and insinuate (or out right accuse) healthcare professionals of lying, malpractice, and misdiagnosis, without a shred of REAL factual or scientific evidence.

It's very frustrating for health professionals and hospitals, because they cannot correct misinformation in the media. Privacy laws prohibit hospitals and professionals from commenting on a particular case, so that leaves only the families and lawyers to control the narrative consumed by the public. And they always make the hospitals and medical professionals out to be evil bad guys who just want to "kill" innocent babies and kids. The whole media thing sickens me to my core, it's so irresponsible and unethical. IMO.

 

[jjenny]

I am not a doctor but if I were this baby's momma and he moved when I tickled him, I would fight to the death to keep him on life support.

For what purpose? So he could spend years hooked to life support machines? There is no recovery from brain death, and moving doesn't mean he is alive.

"It can look like twitches, muscle contractions but unfortunately those are just reflexes. They're not coming from the brain because in brain death, there's a cease of function and unfortunately, it's irreversible," pediatrician Dr. Angelica Ha said."

http://www.kcra.com/news/toddlers-parents-fight-to-keep-him-alive-in-roseville-hospital/39350760

 

[MelmothTheLost]

For what purpose? So he could spend years hooked to life support machines? There is no recovery from brain death, and moving doesn't mean he is alive.

I agree. It feels as though the medical profession is being held to indefinite ransom by delusional and hysterical parents who refuse to listen to reason, and the more families who get away with it the more families will resort to the courts.

Once brain death is declared and recorded it should be a medical, and only a medical, decision to switch off the machines.

There is only one place for the clinically brain dead and that is a mortuary followed by burial or cremation.

ETA that in these cases "life support" doesn't come into it. All the machines are doing is delaying the inevitable onset of putrefaction.

 

[sonjay]

I agree. It feels as though the medical profession is being held to indefinite ransom by delusional and hysterical parents who refuse to listen to reason, and the more families who get away with it the more families will resort to the courts.

Once brain death is declared and recorded it should be a medical, and only a medical, decision to switch off the machines.

There is only one place for the clinically brain dead and that is a mortuary followed by burial or cremation.

ETA that in these cases "life support" doesn't come into it. All the machines are doing is delaying the inevitable onset of putrefaction.

BBM. I totally agree. These cases seem to hinge on the notion that doctors don't have the legal right to determine that the child is deceased — that only the parents have that right. Deceased is deceased, regardless of the parents' desperate denial of the fact.

The courts that grant stays and order continued "treatment" only serve to enable these parents in their delusional thinking. Meanwhile, they also throw into chaos the hospital and the doctors & other medical professionals involved, they tie up medical resources that could be used to help living patients, and they tie up court resources; they impose a cost that goes far beyond the legal or medical expenses.

It's a tragedy when a child dies, always. But parental denial, magical thinking, and faith do not trump medical science.