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View Full Version : What can you do if the death certificate is wrong


barbara83vt
Jul 12, 2013, 07:47 AM
MY 36 year old son had a asthma attack and his heart stopped from lack of oxgen. They resutated him.. it took 40 minutes. He was left in a comma. He was showing gag reflexes and pain reaction and was overbreathing the ventilator. . I was told they were goingto do a apnea test and then they did a blood flo test. NO apnea test was done. They told me he was brain dead on June the 14, 2013.
He was a organ donor and they were called. They told me it would be 20 to 30 hours for testing and finding matches.( it was horriffic compounded bt the fact the hospital never explained this to me before hand yet they were hounding me to take him off the ventilator the whole time)
This is what happened next 16 or so hours after they were testing him ( they even told me a few hours earlier that they found a heart receipaint) they did the apnea test and he tried to breath... they called me in and said they could not go forward under theses circumstances.. I was horrified... was he really brain dead?? ON June the 16 we took him off the ventilator and they were able to get his liver and kidneys. Now this... his death certificate says June the 14 2013 couse of death respitory failure this is wrong!! What can I do

N0help4u
Jul 12, 2013, 07:57 AM
They can put the date of brain death. The only thing keeping him going was the machine. My old boyfriend was brain dead mar. 4, 2000. That is the day they put for him.

N0help4u
Jul 12, 2013, 08:01 AM
Also with the changes in health care they go by quality of life if you are able to rebound from your health conditions. Sad but that's what its come to.

joypulv
Jul 12, 2013, 08:14 AM
I think everyone can understand that in grief, you want to do something, anything.
It's just not clear here what you would like to do. Change the date of death because of the apnea test giving you the feeling that he should have been deemed alive between the 14th and 16th?
That is certainly understandable, and you could possibly try, but the best thing to do might be to get your family doctor to sit down and explain the medical red tape of brain death vs end of ventilator.
I'm very sorry that your son died of something possibly preventable. I hope that if you are feeling helpless about not being there to save him, something we ALL feel (!) when a loved one dies, that you can come to grips with that in other ways too. There's nothing 'wrong' with trying to change the death certificate, but it might be fruitless, and your energy of grief could find other outlets. You could write a letter or go talk to the Hospital Administrator about being hounded to take him off the ventilator, and awful as it sounds, find out why they were doing that. You could follow up on the people who received his organs.
It's been less than a month, so maybe take a little breather in between. I'm so sorry.

barbara83vt
Jul 12, 2013, 08:32 AM
Its just that I need to kow... if could feel anything while they were testing him for organ donation. I feel horrible that they might have been testing him prematuraly and this is a very painfull for me to bear

joypulv
Jul 12, 2013, 10:49 AM
NO, he couldn't. Not in the US, that's for certain. They are very exact about different kinds of comas and brain function and brain death.
Ask your doctor to take the time to show you the medical records, including EEGs, and to explain clearly. Tell him that you need to know every step of what they did and what it MEANS. If he just can't or won't take the time (or if he just tries to appease you with one sentence not to worry), ask a nurse, hospital administrator, head of nurses, or social worker. Even funeral directors know a lot about this - in my state they have to take all sorts of college courses, even psychology.
Go to the medical records dept and get copies of everything.