Comments on: Man Mistakenly Declared Dead; Family Sues

Family Of N.C. Man Hit By Car And Wrongly Declared Dead Sues Medical Officials

[glaswolf]

Apparently an injured body can appear dead and revive without any assistance. You don''t necessarily die because your vital signs cease for a few minutes, they can start up again. It''s just that one normally does ... no one is to blame for those random events when one is comatose and circulation stops for lack of heart beats, systems relax and the iris loses tension ... the family should be happy the body was not drained of blood.

[rowdytexan2]

Good Lord! Isn''t the funeral home even required to make sure people are dead? It looks like the medical examiner, even out of curiousity would check just to make sure! A justice of the peace or officer of the law is not medically trained.

My BP is so low I''ve gone into the ER talking and they could barely find a pulse. You''d think they''d check these things out at every stop.

Yep, what an opportunity for some ambulance chaser! Not to politicize this, but John Edwards would leap on this like a chicken on a june bug.

[aznyron-2009]

Please...someone just offer to pay the family''''s nursing home bills...that''''s all that''''s needed here. So what if he was brain damaged from the second he was hit, or that he had no business walking across a highway...this is America and in America, no one is accountable for their own stupidity. Especially when they end up being 90% vegetable as a result. Just pay the friggin family the money they need to keep him alive in the nursing home and call it a day. God forbid any judge declare a mistrial and lay the burden back on the man. In 3 months of being a ward of the state or pushed from welfare home to welfare home, he''''ll dead anyway, but the family is listening to a slick lawyer who has assured them they can be rich from this guy''''s stupidity if they trust him. Lawyers don''''t lie.
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sorry some one has to pay for damages and pain &
suffering to the family this looks to me like a winning case with loads of money being awarded to the plantiffs thank GOD for the legal system that protects the poor & middle class

[bradshaw53]

I can''t imagine how it felt to be ALIVE in a body bag!! The person that found he was actually ALIVE must have been quite shocked. Who would you call first?

[courtin-2009]

I''m glad the man is alive and hope the man and his family can deal with this. I don''t have any idea what it would be like to be alive and be treated as if dead. I''m glad the coroner didn''t need to do an immediate autopsy.

[magoo2u1]

So , ok , let me understand: If the victim sues he''s a dirt bag for not taking responsiblity.
If the people that pronounced a live man dead get sued, the victim is a dirtbag for demanding they take responsibility.
Now it all makes sense!!
Have you bone heads ever considered that shooting the guy who''s dog bit your kid is illegal so you take the scumbag to court to get JUSTICE? We have a whole system designed so we don''t have to handle it ourselves but you think the people that use it are wrong.
without the system we would have annarchy and lots of "family feuds".

[rhs648]

So in other words, the medical examiner just ASSUMES the person is dead.

Just another ''''its not my fault'''' person.

Posted by mdell27

The first part of your statement is correct. The medical examiner determines the cause of death. Other people determine if a person is dead. This has nothing to do with "Just another ''its not my fault'' person." It has everything to do with different people doing their jobs. If on the other hand, it was the medical examiner''s responsibilty to check for death as soon as a body is brought in, I would be in full asgreement with you. We don''t live in a perfect world.

[mdell27]

So in other words, the medical examiner just ASSUMES the person is dead.

Just another ''its not my fault'' person.

[rhs648]

["The medical examiner is called after death," Perdue said. "Someone else pronounced his death, and the medical examiner is called to investigate the cause and manner of that death. He does not pronounce people dead." ]

it really should be everyone''''s responsibility to know when they''''re dead ... thereby leaving nothing to chance.

Do any of us know how medical examiners work. Suppose normal procedure is to bring a body to the morgue and someone then schedules an autopsy for later in the day or for the next day. It seems logical that a body could be "on ice" for hours or even days before the medical examiner actually sees a body. Suppose there were five other autopsies scheduled before this one. It would be helful to understand what happens before condemning the medical examiner for not discovering that this person was still alive.

[downsteamjim]

John Edwards plans to end global terrorism by sueing Al Quead.