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Euthanasia in New Orleans

Lisa Simpson

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Yes, another NO thread. I couldn't find an existing thread that this fit into.

According to an article on Scotsman.com a 380 pound man was euthanized by a doctor since they felt they couldn't get him downstairs to the rescue area.

ARRIVING in New Orleans last Sunday, I have spent a week reporting the unfolding misery and ruined lives in the aftermath of the hurricane.

But nothing, in the plethora of grim tales of disaster, compares with a terrible incident recounted to me as the week drew to a close. There was a 380-pound man stranded on the seventh floor of a New Orleans hospital. Unable to get him down five flights of stairs to the second-floor exit, through which other patients were being evacuated onto rescue boats to escape the rising floodwater, a female manager took a shocking decision. She ordered that he be given euthanasia.

A bearded, middle-aged doctor, who is still wearing his green hospital garb, tells me the sad story as he and his colleagues sit at the muddy, squalid refugee-receiving post on New Orleans' I10 Highway. He does not want to give me his name and will not identify the patient out of respect.

But he wants people to know what happened in there. His lower jaw quivers as he recalls the events of Wednesday night.

"We had minutes to get out, and I asked, 'What are we going to do about this guy, because he's a big man. It was going to be tough getting him down those stairs - the elevators weren't working. That woman turned to me and said straight out, 'We're going to help him to heaven'. It makes me want to break down, how that man's life was taken away."
Click to expand...


Now assuming this story is true--doesn't euthanasia seem like a fairly extreme option? At least that's my first feeling. Perhaps I'm wrong. I hope at least the man was in a coma.

Opinions?
 
Lisa Simpson said:
Yes, another NO thread. I couldn't find an existing thread that this fit into.

According to an article on Scotsman.com a 380 pound man was euthanized by a doctor since they felt they couldn't get him downstairs to the rescue area.
Click to expand...

Lisa. Using the expression "fit into" when discussing a 380 guy is a tad insensitive. We are nothing if not sensitive to the feelings of others (even large people) here at JREF.
 
I read that in the paper version - it was on the front page. Has it not been picked up anywhere else? Maybe it's not actually true?

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
I read that in the paper version - it was on the front page. Has it not been picked up anywhere else? Maybe it's not actually true?

Rolfe.
Click to expand...

It's the only place I've seen it, although I haven't read every single article about Katrina.
 
I say we give this one 48 hours. It smells fishy to me.
 
Yeah. Anonymous doctor, anonymous "female manager", anonymous patient.

All reported in a story whose headline reads, "Bush panics and sends in the marines".

Sure I believe it.

And who euthanized the patient? The doctor? The manager? While everyone stood around and watched?

They euthanized him even though he was on the 7th floor, and obviously was not going to drown?

The doctor decided to report this murder, not to the police, giving names and details, but to a newspaper reporter, withholding every significant detail?

'Scuse me while I go get some Tylenol. When my BS alarm clangs this loudly, I get a blockbuster of a headache.
 
Actually, the page break was after "going to", so if you were rubbernecking the blatt in a newsagent's you would have had to pick it up and open it to page 2 to see what euphemism for "kill him" the nurse was going to use.

No information about whether the patient was conscious or not, whether or not he was terminally ill.... I've been deliberately not mentioning this to anyone all day, I thought because it was too upsetting to talk about, but now I'm detecting a bit of underlying scepticism as well.
BPSCG said:
And who euthanized the patient? The doctor? The manager? While everyone stood around and watched?
Click to expand...
And that's a salient observation as well. Hospitals don't usually carry bottles labelled "Euthatal" or "Lethobarb" in the stock room - with a decision like that made, how do you decide to do it?

Smells very fishy. I hope it's not true.

Rolfe.
 
If you'll note I did say in the OP "assuming this is true"--I wondered about the truthfullness when I read it this morning.

It would seem like a fairly easy thing to fake. In all the chaos, who is going to check on all the hospitals in NO to see if there is a dead 380 pound guy on the seventh floor.
 
Lisa Simpson said:
It would seem like a fairly easy thing to fake.
Click to expand...
Jeezum crow, I could eat a dictionary and puke a more plausible story...
 
380 lbs? That heat? They are certainly going to notice him when they go back and I doubt if he will be any easier to get down the stairs....of course, this is assuming he actually exists.....Did you hear that they also shot a whole pile of nuns who couldn't manage the climb onto the back of the trucks.....It was the merciful thing to do....
 
Lisa Simpson said:
If you'll note I did say in the OP "assuming this is true"--I wondered about the truthfullness when I read it this morning.

It would seem like a fairly easy thing to fake. In all the chaos, who is going to check on all the hospitals in NO to see if there is a dead 380 pound guy on the seventh floor.
Click to expand...
I'm afraid he'll be quite noticable in a few days.

...Oh, somebody already said that.

But so far, the story only smells fishy, for the reasons given above.

Hans
 
The Fool said:
Did you hear that they also shot a whole pile of nuns who couldn't manage the climb onto the back of the trucks.....It was the merciful thing to do....
Click to expand...

I did. It was.
 
How sad to see that standards at the Scotsman have dropped so far.

It was once a decent newspaper.
 
To be strictly accurate, it was in Scotland on Sunday, not the Scotsman itself, though that's a bit academic.

Rolfe.
 
So we are to believe that:

- a single hospital administrator has the power to order doctors to euthanize patients

- all this happened on Wednesday?!


The only thing about this story that surprises me is that it did not include a part about how the patient was euthanized with a gun because, well, you know, those Americans are just gun-crazy.
 
...There was a 380-pound man stranded on the seventh floor of a New Orleans hospital....

...A bearded, middle-aged doctor, who is still wearing his green hospital garb, tells me the sad story as he and his colleagues sit at the muddy, squalid refugee-receiving post on New Orleans' I10 Highway....

..."We had minutes to get out, and I asked,...
Click to expand...

Now, you're on the seventh floor (60 feet above high tide sea level) of a clean and well-stocked hospital where you could survive for months and you feel you only have minutes to escape to a muddy, squalid refugee receiving post that is perhaps, at best, one or two feet above sea level. So desperate are you to escape your horrid plight for one even more horrid that you're willing to kill someone to do it.

Hell, I'd kill to stay there. You couldn't pry me out with crowbar. If you tried, I'd handcuff myself to the fat guy.
 
No one seems to be mentioning that 380 lbs is pretty big, but hardly in the "can't move under your own power" category. What hospital staircase could this theoretical 380 pound man not fit in?

To put this in perspective.... I'm 360lbs, and 6'1". YES I am a big guy. But I fit in standard theatre seats and have never found a door to be too small for me.
 
That's why I thought perhaps he was in a coma (still assuming it really happened) or some other non-ambulatory state.

I haven't seen any other reports of this story, BTW.
 
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