TAMPA, June 16, 2005
Schiavo Parents Consider Next Move
Autopsy Fails To Convince Them She Could Not Have Recovered
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Play CBS Video Video Schiavo Autopsy Results Terri Schiavo's autopsy reports were made public, and they showed she was blind and had irreversible brain damage. Jim Axelrod reports on the final chapter of Schiavo's controversial life and death.
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Video Schiavo State 'Irreversible' A Florida medical examiner ruled Wednesday that Terri Schiavo would never have recovered from the near fatal brain injury she suffered years earlier. Scott Rapoport reports.
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Terri Schiavo (CBS/AP)
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Medical examiners Dr. Jon Thogmartin, right, and Dr. Stephen Nelson (AP)
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Parents Mary and Bob Schindler earlier this year (AP)
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Interactive Life And Death Battle Terri Schiavo's husband and parents clash over keeping the brain-damaged woman alive.
"Future legal action, we are at this point just examining every option and no decision has been made," said David Gibbs, the attorney for her family. "I've encouraged the family to just let time settle a little bit."
The autopsy report was thorough, about 5 times longer than normal, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Axelrod.
The long-awaited report Wednesday found Schiavo's brain had shrunk to about half the normal size for a woman her age when she died March 31 after her feeding tube was disconnected. The autopsy also determined she was blind.
Bob and Mary Schindler disputed the results, insisting their daughter interacted with them and tried to speak.
"She wouldn't recognize anybody's face, wouldn't recognize anyone's voice. wouldn't respond to stimuli in anything but a reflexive way," Dr. Douglas Miller, a neuropathologist, told CBS News. "They were seeing what they wanted to see, which is common and unfortunate in situations like this. It was just not possible."
The findings vindicated Schiavo's husband in his long and vitriolic battle with his in-laws that engulfed the courts, Congress and the White House and divided the country. Michael Schiavo and court-appointed doctors have said she had no hope of recovery. She died at age 41.
©MMV CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
