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I'm so sorry you're going through that. Everyone should take this advice seriously. My 94yo grandfather passed a few days before Christmas last year and I had
by nickysielicki 6y ago
I'm so sorry you're going through that. Everyone should take this advice seriously.
My 94yo grandfather passed a few days before Christmas last year and I had been staying next-door, taking care of him for about 2 months leading-up to it (helping him to the bathroom a few times per night, getting him water, etc. Congestive heart failure is not the dignified and pain-free death you might think it would be.)
I found his body maybe 5 minutes after his heart had failed, and it took another 20 for the paramedics to arrive. I was really upset to find that when they arrived, without a DNR on file anywhere, they were required to attempt to resuscitate. I was sitting there with my grandmother hoping that it wouldn't come to that, and luckily common sense prevailed and they were able to get a doctor on the phone to sign-off on avoiding CPR. But for a while there, I was really concerned that my grandmother and I were going to have to watch them desecrate his body which had been lifeless for close to 30 minutes. Horrible.
By default, liability overrules common-sense when it comes to medical treatment, and absolutely everyone loses.
- JshWright 6y agoThat varies from state to state (and certainly country to country). Here in New York I wouldn’t automatically be required to begin resuscitation in a scenario like that, _especially_ if family requesting no efforts be made. It’s possible (if you’re in the US) that the responders were EMTs, not paramedics, and would have had less autonomy to make that decision.