Readied To Donate Organs, 21-Year-Old Emerges From Coma

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Sam Schmid, an Arizona college student believed to be brain dead and poised to be an organ donor, miraculously recovered just hours before doctors were considering taking him off life support. Schmid, a junior and business major at the University of Arizona, was critically wounded in an Oct. 19 car accident in Tucson, which took the life of his friend and roommate.

The 21-year-old's brain injuries were so severe that the local hospital could not treat him. He was airlifted to the Barrow Neurological Institute at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Phoenix, where specialists performed surgery for a life-threatening aneurysm.

As hospital officials began palliative care and broached the subject of organ donation with his family, Schmid began to respond, holding up two fingers on command. Today he is walking with the aid of a walker, and his speech, although slow, has improved.

Doctors say he will likely have a complete recovery. He even hopes to get a day pass from the hospital to celebrate the holidays with his large extended family.

"Nobody could ever give me a better Christmas present than this -- ever, ever, ever," said his mother, Susan Regan, who is vice-president of the insurance company Lovitt-Touche.

"I tell everyone, if they want to call it a modern-day miracle, this is a miracle," said Regan, 59, and a Catholic. "I have friends who are atheists who have called me and said, 'I am going back to church.'"

Schmid's doctor, renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Robert Spetzler, agreed that his recovery was miraculous.

"I am dumb-founded with his incredible recovery in such a short time," said Spetzler. "His recovery was really remarkable considering the extent of his lethal injuries."

Hospital officials are crediting Spetzler with having a "hunch" that despite an initially dire prognosis, the young man would make it. But he said it was "reasonable" for others to consider withdrawing the patient from life support.

"It looked like all the odds were stacked against him," said Spetzler, who has performed more than 6,000 such surgeries and trained the doctor who operated on Congressman Gabrielle Giffords after she was shot at the beginning of this year.

During surgery, Spetzler clipped the balloonlike aneurysm in the blood vessel -- "as if I were patching a tire," a procedure that eventually worked.

For days Schmid didn't seem to be responding, but what puzzled his doctor was that he did not see fatal injuries on the MRI scan. So he decided to keep Schmid on life support longer.

"There was plenty wrong -- he had a hemorrhage, an aneurysm and a stroke from the part of the aneurysm," Spetzler said. "But he didn't have a blood clot in the most vital part of his brain, which we know he can't recover from. And he didn't have a massive stroke that would predict no chance of a useful existence."

So while the family was given a realistic picture of Schmid's poor chances for survival, Spetzler ordered one more MRI to see if the critical areas of the brain had turned dark, indicating brain death.

"If not, we would hang on and keep him on support," he said. "But I didn't want to give the family false hope."

Schmid's mother said no one "specifically" asked if her son would be a donor, but they "subtly talk to you about quality of life."

"At some point, I knew we had to make some sort of decision, and I kept praying," said Regan.

The MRI came back with encouraging news during the day and by evening Schmid "inexplicably" followed the doctors' commands, holding up two fingers.

"It was like fireworks all going off at the same time," said Spetzler.

Today, Schmid -- his speech clear and sounding upbeat -- told ABCNews.com, "I feel fine. I'm in a wheelchair, but I am getting lots of help."

Sam Schmid Has No Memory of the Accident

He said he remembers nothing of the accident nor coming around after being in an induced coma. "It wasn't until I woke up in rehab," he said. "But they told me about afterwards."

Schmid, who was a passenger, and his friend Anthony Andrighetto were returning from coaching basketball at his former Catholic school when a van swerved into their lane. Their Jeep went airborne, hit a light pole and landed on its side.

http://gma.yahoo.com/readied-donate-organs-21-old-emerges-coma-204904805.html

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Sam Schmid, an Arizona college student believed to be brain dead and poised to be an organ donor, miraculously recovered just hours before doctors were considering taking him off life support.

Awesome. Makes you wonder about the Shiavo case.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Awesome. Makes you wonder about the Shiavo case.

Well, this is good news for this man, but no - it doesn't make you wonder about the Shiavo case. The MRI in this case showed positive signs that the brain was still healthy. Shiavo's brain scans - and the actual brain when the body was autopsied - was withered and bore little resemblance to a viable brain.

http://en.wikipedia....ri_Schiavo_case (the CT scan image half way down this article is extremely illustrative of her brain's condition)

In October this year my Dad went in for open heart surgery. During the surgery he experienced a rare complication - while being transferred to the heart-lung bypass machine, his aorta ruptured. The doctors raced against time to repair the rupture and to return the blood flow to the brain. They did not know if they had made it or not as they proceeded with the surgery they went in to do. They told me after he returned from the OR that in a best case scenario there would be minimal brain damage; in a worst case scenario he would be brain dead, and we would not have an idea until after he was taken off of the anaesthesia.

Over the next two days his body eventually awoke. His eyes opened and appeared to follow voices that spoke to him. He was totally unresponsive, however, to any type of stiimuli either physical or verbal. After 3 days they did tests to determine the level of brain activity - a CT Scan, an EEG evaluation and a nerve conduction test the name of which I don't recall but measures the flow of stimuli from the hand and arm to the brain.

While waiting for the results it became apparent that his recovery was unlikely. His eyes which had previously appeared to focus now just moved back and forth. He grimaced but it seemed to be in response to changes in the feeding and breathing tubes. There were no twitching responses anymore, and the breathing apparatus that had been turned off initially because he was breathing over it, had to be turned back on. The results came back - only the Cerebellum was showing activity - the instinctive center of the brain. He opened his eyes to sound stimuli, but not because he knew what the sound was, only that there was sound. His eyes appeared to follow because we were speaking to him at the time, but he could not see. The brain was damaged to a degree that it had lost its functionality - he was virtually brain dead, although he was exhibiting the same behaviour as Terry Schiavo did.

The CTScan was particularly illuminating - and the doctors went over it with me so I could see and understand it for myself. The gray matter of the brain was gone - it had basically disintegrated. There were huge dark holes that extended in from the exterior and went through all levels of the brain. There was nothing there that could think, remember, or be the man who was my father. The body might still have been alive, but my Dad had 'died' on the operating table from severe hypoxia.

As he had left instructions that he did not wish to be kept alive if there were no reasonable chances for survival, we removed him from life support. He died four and half hours later.

So, no, I don't wonder about the Schiavo case - they had clear evidence that the brain was dead and could not sustain life unsupported by machines. All that remained were the autonomic functions of the cerebellum - the eyes roving from side to side, the grimacing and twitching - all stimulli responses from the cerebellum. Terry Schiavo was dead and had been dead for many years. The only reason her body was still around is that her parents refused to take her off of artificial life support.

The young man in this story is wonderfully lucky, but no where does it state that there was any evidence that his brain was damaged beyond repair. Even after the surgery they were getting positive indicators. Preparing the family after surgery about possible outcomes, especially for something so delicate and sensitive as repair of an aneurism, is always wise. They weren't preparing or planning on taking his organs for donation at this stage - they were just being informed of the 'what ifs' if he didn't survive. Fortunately, in this case, they weren't needed.

Edited December 24, 2011 by Kathryn41

[Brother Hesekiel 2,236]

I have a similar living will on record. I do not wish that any extraordinary means are implemented to keep my body alive. I will never allow anybody to take parts from my body, and on the same token I would never allow that parts from another person are implanted in mine. I do not believe that our creator intended our bodies to become parts donors. If our time is up, it's up. Period.

One of my very best friends had a horrible accident three weeks ago. While moving stuff in his warehouse, a 600-lbs crate fell down and hit him in the neck. He is paralyzed from the neck downward, can move nothing but his eyes. I have not been allowed to visit him yet but I hope he has a similar living will in place. If not, his fate is going to be worse than being burned alive: he will for presumably decades be a prisoner in a body that does not respond to him, lying down, staring to the ceiling, wanted to scream "let me go!" but unable to do so.

The time for a living will (I believe they call it "medical directive" now) is right now. You don't know what might happen to you tomorrow and by then it may be too late.