British Expatriate Network

This is pretty amazing...

http//www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/02/14/wspeak14.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/02/14/ixworld.html

"Sarah Scantlin was an 18-year-old student when she was struck by a motorist while walking to her car in 1984.

Doctors described her survival as miraculous. They had said she was doomed to remain forever as she was immediately after the crash - unable to walk, talk or really move on her own.

For 20 years all she could do was communicate by blinking - one blink for "no,'' two for "yes'' - to questions no one knew for sure she understood. Then last month she uttered the word "okay".

Since then she has recalled names of her school friends and childhood pets, and her birthday. On Saturday, her parents hosted an open house at her nursing home in Hutchinson, Kansas, to re-introduce their daughter to 200 friends and family members."


I do get that eerie feeling that if euthanasia were legal in Kansas, Sarah Scantlin wouldn't be alive at this point. Her doctors told her parents there was no hope of recovery. Ever.

Sorry Gavin but thats crap. :wink: :D You are conflating different issues.

This woman was not in a persistent vegatative state - therefore there is no way there or anywhere else they were going to kill her.

You confuse this will the situation where people are so called 'brain dead' and only breath with the aid of medical devices and are fed through tubes.

A third situation, exemplified by Terry Sceivo in Florida, is where the person is arguably so called brain dead, but can still breath without aid. They need a feeding tube.

In the second situation, if you switch off the devices the patient dies in moments. In the last, she would effectively starve to death (as I understand it) but is the case you cite she was capable of communication throughout.

Even if Euthanasia were legal in Kansas (which give the rampant religious ignarance there, is improbable) - it would not have applied in this case.

yes i saw this on the news. The coverage was very misleading. She was in a coma for years and had been unable to speak, (now couldn't she speak because she was in a coma or some other problem) she was breathing unaided and fed thru a tube. She awoke and they did a brain scan and found her neural pathways were healing. Well, they showed signs of life and brain activity related to being awake and aware
Brain stem damage, as the lady in Florida, means there is no way of recovering any activity. Physical movements and such are generally due to slow atrophy of muscles. The person in there has gone. Even coughing and laughing are physical responses. The only hope for brain stem damage is the therapy Bush has denied.