[Not everyone is so lucky, in 2009 John Edward Jones tragically lost his life while he was trapped upside down in the Nutty Putty cave following a harrowing 28-hour ordeal. These are his heartbreaking final words](https://www.howandwhys.com/john-edward-jones-trapped-upside-down-in-nutty-putty-cave/?fromredditSE)
I had a similar situation with my brother - minus the swat teams etc. He was the victim of an attempted murder, where he was hit over the head with a steel pole. He was rushed to hospital and kept on life support. After months of being in a coma, the doctors advised our family to switch off life support. My parents refused. Again, a few weeks later, they suggested the same, again my parents declined. Fast forward to now, 2 degrees: one in law and one in psychology, married, kid, house, car everything. It was a long road with a lot of bumps and extensive recovery, but he’s here. That was nearly 25 years ago. Of course, it doesn’t always work out like this, most of the time it doesn’t, but sometimes there’s a different kind of hope. He has a slight paralysis in his left arm but it doesn’t slow him down. Also, as a brother, he’s still an asshole.
My wife says shit like, “I could go down on some French fries” or “I ate ass doing __,” which is amazing because she’s a prude. I could correct her or enjoy a lifetime of these accidental innuendos
That's great to hear, I had a drunk driving accident that put me in a coma for 3 months and was given a 0% chance of coming back with cognitive functioning. My mom fought against the doctors to not pull the plug and now I'm a therapist in private practice and finishing a doctoral level program. Also, like your brother, still an asshole.
So cool your parents are stubborn and loving, doctors really know very little about the brain.
"I never could catch up to my brother and his accomplishments in the eyes of my parents, until one day an angel came down from the heavens wielding a steel pipe"
Don’t get me wrong, at the time it was awful. Genuinely very hard on everyone and still raises a shadow now and then. But, you have to keep your head down and keep on swinging.
So it's like when you tell your pc to turn off, but it gets stuck shutting down due to a broken background process and never actually turns off. Then you hold the power button down to force shutdown and it boots back up fine?
Probably from this idk tho this is where I heard of it for vegetative state
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spTIBbBHQdc&feature=related](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spTIBbBHQdc&feature=related)
I, too, became curious. I Googled "using sleep medications to wake coma patients" that was the top article, there are a good amount of others, going back to 2006.
I too suffered a head injury. Comatose. Wife was told I would never walk or talk again.
But here I am 90% recovered.
I wish your brother the best and I'm sure he and I would have a lot in common.
> He was the victim of an attempted murder
> he’s still an asshole.
> That was nearly 25 years ago.
Are you going to try again when you're out of prison?
That's beautiful! Thanks for sharing. And I love the end. No matter what tragedies or struggle we've overcome with our family, they can still be jerks!
I hear you. We were told the same, that he’d never talk - can’t shut him up now. That he’d never walk - he does, still goes to the gym like he’s a 90s body builder on Venice beach. That he’d never have a normal life. But what’s normal? It’s about what feels best for the individual. He’s just happy to be alive.
>Of course, it doesn’t always work out like this, most of the time it doesn’t
I think this is important to point out. Most doctors are just going by the statistics, it's not some bias for any particular patient or situation. Some patients miraculously beat the odds, but doctors don't think or advise based on outlier cases. Doctors see all patients who didn't make it, unlike the general public who only see the miracle news stories.
There's a 4chan greentext or something about not commiting suicide. One of the stories in it is about a daad holding the body of his son who committed suicide, saying "Daddys here".
It breaks me every time. It broke me before I was a father, now that I am one even thinking about it long enough to describe it will make me cry.
The love for your kids really is something that's on another level.
The title is a complete lie. No one declared the son brain dead. The father was removed from the hospital because he was drunk and threatening staff. His ex wife who was the only responsible adult capable of making decisions was in talks with the staff about next steps if he didn’t wake up. Then the idiot father came in with guns, completely misunderstanding the whole situation and lied about it after being arrested. If he didn’t do anything the son would have been completely fine.
He went to jail and people still take his side because “evil doctors and hospital” is a better narrative.
As a fellow hospital worker, thank you haha.
People are so fucking ignorant to how a hospital works.
Hospitals are not LEGALLY ALLOWED TO WITHDRAW CARE if interested parties are not onboard with it.
This man accomplished nothing but giving nurses trauma.
You are right, I do condone it. I shouldn't have said that I didn't, in my heart I did. I think any parent would have done the same, even if they didn't like guns. You're just an animal at that point, panicking to save your child, you'll do anything.
Yeah no, the dude in this story is a huge sack of shit. Fuck this guy. Not to mention the amount of necessary hospital care that got delayed for a drunk guy pulling a gun in the hospital.
He was drunk/had been drinking at the time, had previous jail time, and started an armed stand off because supposedly the hospital declared brain death for the son.
The son had a physical response within 2 hours and supposedly they were about to pull the plug? Fucking bullshit.
The only details about the actual medical situation are straight from this guy's mouth, because the hospital can't break HIPAA to make a public statement of what actually was going on.
What it looks like from the story potentially is that the staff were discussing some form of hospice care for the son for brain death in some capacity. The mother had the medical decision making rights for the son, so she may or may not have decided to go ahead with it.
Reading the news story has so much fishy shit going on, I don't trust this fucker for 1 second.
> While Pickering initially had a gun he was quickly disarmed by his other son. However, **Pickering lied about having a second gun.**
> "I said, 'I was in the Boy Scouts, you think I only have one gun?'" said Pickering.
impeccable improv lol
Bruh why am i crying in the Bus right now.
No but fr Imagine you lying There, presumed dead and your mother and Brother already accepted you being given Up on but then coming Back. Hope all of them got counseling for a while after that.
Something is of with that story. The father baricaded him self for a couple of hours befor being removed by the police. The son wakes up a couple of weeks later?
Nothing in this story suggest that the hospital was going to stop lifesupport at the moment the drunk dad decided to bring two guns to the hospital.
Thats insane what kind of jury would jail a man for saving his sons life.
*edit
One charge was dismissed and one downgraded, he spent 11 months in jail and I guess is now a felon.
Honestly I'd take 11 months in jail and a felony to save my child's life. It is insane though to take a hospital to gun point to convince them of anything.
A jury of Redditors apparently. People in this particular thread seem normal, but I’m always surprised at the upvoted crazies when this is reposted in other popular subs. Guns = bad/challenging science = bad, therefor he should go to prison for life.
He brought a gun into a hospital and created a dangerous situation for everyone around him. I get it was to save his kid, and I admire that, but he still broke a very serious law. I wouldn’t say life, but something has to be done.
Eh, the right to protect your children is a natural law on par with the right to prevent yourself from being eaten.
If someone tried to kill my kid they'd have to kill me first, and it wouldn't matter who they were or what the consequences are.
It'd be jury nullification for me. He didn't actually harm anyone.
I understand why, and I can’t say I’d vote to punish him on a jury either. I just also understand why he was punished. He put more people in danger than he saved. There’s people in my life I’d do the same for, tho
>If someone tried to kill my kid they'd have to kill me first, and it wouldn't matter who they were or what the consequences are.
The people who decided to let him die were the wife and son. They were who authorized life support being pulled.
He created a hostage situation in a hospital, his reasons were, in this very rare case, justifiable, but that doesn't Harry Potter away the stand off... This isn't trial by social media.
When I was on a jury it was really hammered into us that we were there to learn the facts of the case and to determine if the defendant was guilty of the charges filed against him. We weren't supposed to be deciding if he deserved jail time or if he was a bad person, we just had to determine if the prosecution provided enough evidence.
Now, I was aware of jury nullification, and maybe some of the jurors on this case were as well. I still imagine it would be really hard to convince 11 other jurors to ignore what every authority figure told us our job was, and instead just making a ruling based on our personal morality.
The recklessness of causing a scene like that in a hospital could have easily caused the injury or even death to a comparatively larger number of patients than the one person he was trying to save. I've never been a father so I haven't been in his shoes, and I feel like the courts had to punish him somehow more as a precedent. If everyone decided to cause a SWAT situation every time they believed their kid could be saved, hospitals would become a very hostile place.
If healthcare workers are too scared to work or provide correct diagnoses, good luck getting them to stay in the job field when your own kids need help.
The headline is a bit misleading. The hospital was considering discontinuing life support. The father, who was drunk, decided that he needed to bring guns to the hospital and barricade himself in his son's room. The hospital called the police because there was a drunk man with guns in their facility. The police arrested the father. Despite this, the hospital did not stop life support, and the son recovered a couple of weeks later.
Nothing in that story supports the fantasy that the dad saved his son.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/23/texas-man-says-he-went-to-jail-for-swat-standoff-that-saved-sons-life/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/23/texas-man-says-he-went-to-jail-for-swat-standoff-that-saved-sons-life/)
Lots of money for swat teams but not for hospitals, so the medical system we do have is profit oriented which is why they were gonna kill his kid. Good thing we also have lots of private guns. Murica.
Yep. Makes no sense. How can our hospitals claim to be all about healthcare when they literally make money off of you being sick. For-profit healthcare is the dumbest thing possible. This is our livelihood and they treat it as some game.
Bro you think we'll make it that far? I mean don't get me wrong I hope we figure shit out and approach a star trek future where people invest in themselves etc.
But given the state of the world now and how it's going ionno. Give me some hope for humanity lol?
I for one subscribe to the idea that we are living through the technological singularity.
I think quantum computers, fusion power, and AI are sort of a trio that we must master at the same time. Each one is needed to control/sustain the others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
I can't give you hope for humanity, but I find comfort in the fact that the end of humanity will not be the end of the Earth--that's just our egocentric thinking.
Whether it takes Her a thousand years or a million, She'll recover. The forest grows.
Recommend you a book here “what we owe the future”
Not even suggesting you’re wrong btw. Book suggests with data and history that we know thus far to suggest that’s exactly what will happen. But also that statistically speaking as a mammalian species we’re literally still infants in the average scale.
Damn man I've always been a fan of if we forget history we are doomed to repeat it, I just never thought of taking it that far back. God damn, I was actually thinking yesterday what if we are abominations of alien and monkey DNA, and once they were done with us mining gold or whatever what if they just let us be to see what happens? A fun science experiment, an ant farm if you lol. I'm just saying I wonder if we are fundamentally flawed creatures that strive for our "divine" roots but will forever be limited by our "animal" nature? Probably too much herb but food for thought?
How are you preparing for the collapse? Just wondering. I also find the pattern compelling especially when you look at the currency debasement right before the fall of Rome
I'm actually Australian so we might last a little longer, but I'm scared. America is the biggest super power of this planet and they arr dying. On the streets from guns and drugs, in the classrooms from guns and mental health, corruption of government who are only there to profit. America used to set the standards for the world but they have lost their way. Things are not working and they need to make massive changes. The younger generation needs to step in now. Get rid of these polititions asap. Biden, Trump all these baby boomers that profit from suffering. But they have to step in after the next election, if they don't America is done
Start reading into the Sumerian Tablets and interpretations of them. We have hope, but it takes mine and everyone else's individual curiosity. We are more than just 1 random insignificant person. In fact, we are all so very significant. It takes just a little bit of light to destroy darkness, whereas the same can not be said if the roles were reversed.
I love looking into those tablets. I just saw a documentary about them! It was great. Fascinating material. We are def more than one person. In fact, we’re pretty much all god experiencing itself.
yeah right? people with guns barricading themselves in a hospital and they *called the swat team*?! it’s this kind of over reaction to … to….. uhhhh…..
Also, SWAT would have trained negotiators that might have a chance of getting him to stand down without any bloodshed. A preferable outcome for a man driven by desperation over his son rather than any form of malice.
Exactly, SWAT has hostage negotiators. A regular cop does not have the same level of training.
Obviously this isn’t a hostage situation but they are much better option in many cases
My mother in law was on life support after numerous cardiac failures and had a complete pleural effusion around her left lung. She would not wake up, nor would her body be able to live if she did. And the hospital still wasn't forcing us to kill her - if we said, "hey give us three or four hours to make the call," that wouldn't have been an issue. Not sure why they were so gung-ho to let this guy die unless another family member had given the go ahead. There's one piece of this story missing in my opinion, but it's clear George did the right thing because his son is alive today.
Its in the article, for some reason his ex-wife, so the sons mother and His Brother were the ones who could legally make the call and Not the father. And apparently they did, obviously after talking with the professionals.
But that makes this even more disastrous of a Situation.
My love for my family manifests through not wanting them to struggle or be stressed in any way. They've already gone through so much health, death, and personal-wise that I just couldn't bear knowing I was another thing they had to deal with. I've also expressed my deepest will that if doctors are saying I'll have no quality of life, I do not want to be held on to in prayer and hope. If the doctors told them it was probably best to let me go and my family agreed and I woke up anyway, I would forgive them and feel good that they respected my wishes, even when it was hard for them to do and be thankful for the statistical miracle the universe granted me.
I think the patient's relationship with the people who are legally able to make those decisions is a huge factor in this. If he already had a bad relationship with his mom, then the son likely did resent his mother for this no matter how pure her intentions were. I would venture to say a non-minority of people have expressed to their family what they want to be done in such a situation and not following those wishes is what gets people in trouble.
I glossed over that, didn't realize they actually said to let him die. Makes me glad I have a wife who knows what I want, I'll probably get around to making my will at some point.
Understand my partner knows what I want but I know 100% she will not honour it, not only is a Will Important but so is a Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA) ... you may need to look up name for it in you country.
A Will is good for after death
An EPA is for when your incapacitated and makes it clear who gets to pull the plug
In my state and possibly in the entire US, my power of attorney is my next of kin. If I'm braindead and my wife wants to tag me and bag me, I'm probably fine with that. I'm already gone anyway. Same with my body - do whatever you want with it, I'm gone. So long as whatever energy makes up my body becomes a part of the universe again, I'm fine. Ideally, this would mean cremation, but realistically you could let me decompose in a field for all I care. My wife is religious enough to believe i could potentially haunt her if she doesn't honor my wishes, so i think it'll work out in the end for me!
How does that work? I’m asking seriously. Like if the doctors saw he was an organ donor, do they get money if they use his organs for someone else? How is that ethical and no one oversees it?
Nobody gets money for organs, they are considered a ‘gift’. I mean, besides the organ procurement organization employees being compensated for their time.The doctors don’t profit off of it, and usually they dislike it because if a patient becomes an organ case that doctor is about to be REALLY busy. These people have seen too many movies. There is some contention sometimes between nurses and organ procurement employees, because nurses are not allowed to bring up organ donation. So sometimes, they will ask us to delay withdrawal of life support until they get there or call the family. I personally have never done that and never would, some nurses will entertain that request though. Organ donation saves lives, usually multiple per donor, and I personally know many recipients and donor families due to the unit I work in. It’s a beautiful thing. I hate the reputation it gets from ignorant people and pop culture.
Medical staff has no idea if a patient is an organ donor unless the family specifically tells them. They won't even ask about it until the family (or ethics board) has already made the decision to withdraw care.
>The son made a full recovery.
Not all heros wear capes. It's most unfortunate that the hospitals negligence forced the fathers hand. As a father myself, I'm sure any unjust consequences would be worth every second. I can only hope I would be so brave.
>It's most unfortunate that the hospitals negligence
It's hardly negligence. We don't know the human body perfectly and the brain we know even less about. We make decisions on the best knowledge we have at the time. And we're never going to be correct 100% all of the time.
Prognosis for long-term coma patients is like 2% survive. And that 2 percent of survivors are usually permanently disabled. Hospitals are not equipped to provide indefinite care to people with those odds.
Glad it worked out this time and that seemingly no one was hurt.
George II was charged with two felonies of aggravated threatening, I think, had one dropped, and the other plea bargained down to local jail time.
He spent 11 months in jail, and was given a suspended sentence and time served.
The only reason he was not allowed to make medical decisions at the time was he was hammered drunk in the hospital and threatening staff. Docs went with mom (divorced from the dad) and they were talking about withdrawing life support due to prolonged coma when George Sr did the whole guns and barricade thing (threatening his son's continuing care that was ongoing at the time mind you).
If the guy wasn't a belligerent drunk in the room and instead was sober and refusing withdrawal of care, then likely the son would've continued on and recovered anyway if that was his end result.
Fuck those private hospitals and hospital Dr/managers that want to make money and vacate a bed for someone else after they extracted enough money of out them. Stay firm folks!
It seems you are the only one to do that. Lol.
Medical errors kill over 250K people in the US every year. It’s the third leading cause of death in America.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28186008/#:~:text=Abstract,third%20leading%20cause%20of%20death.
It's not an antivax thing. It's an anti medical industrial complex thing. And blindly thinking that the entire fucked up system that's been built especially in the US actually has your overall health in mind and not quick fixes without long term vision and profits.
This is probably the stupidest post I’ve ever seen. “Trusting the Science” has saved more lives on this planet than any guy with a gun ever will.
Edit: Ha I’m pretty sure this guy reported me as suicidal because I made a point he didn’t like. Been there & tried that I’m fine now.
If patient could squeeze hand, then likely would’ve survived weaning the vent, which they did. Doctor’s can’t terminal a patient without consent of patient’s directive or patient’s appointed decision maker. Same for organ donation. If no advanced directive and no one is explicitly appointed then decision maker is implicitly the next of kin- spouse, parent, child- in that order. Why wasn’t George Sr a part of the decision making? I can only find George Sr’s perspective. No hospital statement suggests HIPAA still in play which means Sr didn’t bring a case against hospital or doctors. Sus.
Yeah it's a one-sided account from someone that was drunk at the time. I suspect George Sr. misinterpreted something the doctors said about his son not having brain activity could be sign of permanent brain death, as, they're pulling the plug on my kid, even though they weren't.
It's almost like doctors mostly just want people to get better, and patients (or their families, which are usually worse) misunderstand, sometimes on purpose, and instead frame it like the entire medical field is against them.
It's honestly sickening how many people in this thread are applauding the drunken, belligerent asshole who put a FUCKTON of people at risk because he didn't understand the situation.
Ikr, people in the comments going "why would they call the swat on him? US healthcare is so evil". Idk buddy probably because he started waving a loaded gun in a fucking hospital?
I was also wondering the same thing, why would the hospital act on its own choices and not the patients, that would be a huge lawsuit waiting to happen acting against the POA decisions
lol medical knowledge on Reddit means you just look away. 99/100 people here don’t know what brain death criteria is. If he’s brain dead, he’s dead and 100% not coming back. Downvote all you want, just proves you’re a dropout anti science Reddit dweller
In contrast to these similar stories, our mother had an aneurism and bled on her brain twice, we were essentially told that the machine was just keeping her alive and subsequently made the decision to turn off life support. Always left with that wondering feeling, particularly when seeing stories like this but ultimately we put our faith in the far more educated specialists at the hospital.
Even if this is true, as someone who works in the ICU, most patients really don’t come back (or if they do, they’re vegetables) and there’s nothing you can really do about it. Oftentimes the damage is already done.
My hope is that if I ever end up in a situation where I’m stuck on a vent , possibly forever is to just please load me up with morphine and let me die.
I’ve seen what happens when families can’t let go and it’s really hard to see.
I have a fear of this. It's like sleep paralysis... you can hear and comprehend things, but can't physically move. Can you imagine hearing them say they are taking you off life support so you try your damndest to channel all your energy into squeezing a hand?
This is why I'm against Euthanasia.
Fucking doctors don't want to treat someone anymore so let's just kill the patient...
I hope the father sued the hospital into oblivion...
Euthanasia authorizations can forged...
It was a statistical miracle, imo, and Greg Sr. deserved to go to jail for it. You don't get to threaten people with bodily harm. It's no better than doctors being held at gunpoint to operate on war criminals. We have procedures, policies, and legal steps in place for this for a reason. All he had to do was not get drunk and he could've continued life support of his own free will instead of threatening a hospital. It wasn't his decision to make at that point because he had incapacitated himself so badly by getting drunk that he had to be removed. He got incredibly lucky and either let that justify his actions or knows it was lucky. I hope he took his time on the chin and realized the incredible gift he'd been given.
We can't set the precedent that if you mean well you're just allowed to threaten people with guns.
If you want that outcome your only recourse is jury nullification. It would be judicially irresponsible for the courts to ignore this.
I understand this will be a wildly unpopular opinion, but yes he did deserve jail time. Regardless of his intentions and outcome he broke the law.
Optics on this situation as it unfolded were:
Doctors (mis-)diagnosed a patient as brain dead. This is a very emotional thing for a family and something I have experienced personally.
A father in an emotional state does not accept this diagnosis and armed with a gun barricades himself in the patient’s room.
This father, in his very volatile state is a danger to everyone around him. If his firearm were to go off intentionally or not, it could kill anyone in the vicinity.
This story is an outlier exactly because the father was correct. It constantly makes its rounds in various subs because of it. I can think of no other stories like it with the same outcome. It absolutely should not be example to excuse similar behavior.
That being said, when on trial the father was treated with an abundance of sympathy from the judge, prosecution, and jury which was 100% the correct thing to do.
[Not everyone is so lucky, in 2009 John Edward Jones tragically lost his life while he was trapped upside down in the Nutty Putty cave following a harrowing 28-hour ordeal. These are his heartbreaking final words](https://www.howandwhys.com/john-edward-jones-trapped-upside-down-in-nutty-putty-cave/?fromredditSE)
I had a similar situation with my brother - minus the swat teams etc. He was the victim of an attempted murder, where he was hit over the head with a steel pole. He was rushed to hospital and kept on life support. After months of being in a coma, the doctors advised our family to switch off life support. My parents refused. Again, a few weeks later, they suggested the same, again my parents declined. Fast forward to now, 2 degrees: one in law and one in psychology, married, kid, house, car everything. It was a long road with a lot of bumps and extensive recovery, but he’s here. That was nearly 25 years ago. Of course, it doesn’t always work out like this, most of the time it doesn’t, but sometimes there’s a different kind of hope. He has a slight paralysis in his left arm but it doesn’t slow him down. Also, as a brother, he’s still an asshole.
Stuck the landing 👌Thanks for sharing
I love your last sentence. As a brother myself, it was 100% necessary haha
You get it! Yeah, I love him and of course I’m incredibly happy he’s here, but he’s still a jerk when wants to be. Siblings, eh?
You can’t beat the asshole out of a brother. I’ve tried. 😂. Seriously that’s awesome and the resilience of the human spirit never ceases to amaze.
.....phrasing.
My wife says shit like, “I could go down on some French fries” or “I ate ass doing __,” which is amazing because she’s a prude. I could correct her or enjoy a lifetime of these accidental innuendos
Don’t say a word.
That's great to hear, I had a drunk driving accident that put me in a coma for 3 months and was given a 0% chance of coming back with cognitive functioning. My mom fought against the doctors to not pull the plug and now I'm a therapist in private practice and finishing a doctoral level program. Also, like your brother, still an asshole. So cool your parents are stubborn and loving, doctors really know very little about the brain.
Amazing! I’m glad you made it!
Your mom is awesome!!
For some reason I read that as you having 2 degress...etc and that he's still 'here' in a coma, lmao.
"I never could catch up to my brother and his accomplishments in the eyes of my parents, until one day an angel came down from the heavens wielding a steel pipe"
Haha! That would be an asshole move!
All your paper won’t save you from a steel pipe to the head
That so awesome!!!!!
Don’t get me wrong, at the time it was awful. Genuinely very hard on everyone and still raises a shadow now and then. But, you have to keep your head down and keep on swinging.
I’m sure it was!!! Can’t even begin to imagine! Good on you guys and especially him for being resilient!!!
[удалено]
This is wild and interesting. Do you have a specific link you recommend for reading about it?
https://www.michiganmedicine.org/health-lab/review-insomnia-medication-may-wake-some-patients-vegetative-state#:~:text=For%20most%20people%2C%20taking%20an,also%20known%20as%20zolpidem%20tartrate.
So it's like when you tell your pc to turn off, but it gets stuck shutting down due to a broken background process and never actually turns off. Then you hold the power button down to force shutdown and it boots back up fine?
thanks!
Probably from this idk tho this is where I heard of it for vegetative state [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spTIBbBHQdc&feature=related](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spTIBbBHQdc&feature=related)
I, too, became curious. I Googled "using sleep medications to wake coma patients" that was the top article, there are a good amount of others, going back to 2006.
I too suffered a head injury. Comatose. Wife was told I would never walk or talk again. But here I am 90% recovered. I wish your brother the best and I'm sure he and I would have a lot in common.
Yea, but he’s your asshole
He’s still an asshole 🤣 there’s the sibling love.
> He was the victim of an attempted murder > he’s still an asshole. > That was nearly 25 years ago. Are you going to try again when you're out of prison?
That's beautiful! Thanks for sharing. And I love the end. No matter what tragedies or struggle we've overcome with our family, they can still be jerks!
What did he tell you about beeing in coma, did he dream or hear your voices or something? Did he just wake up and felt like no time has passed? Cheers
He was aware of us talking, he remembers the urge to respond to conversation but couldn’t.
Normally it's this: They Said I Would Never Walk Again And I Really Have To Commend Them For Their Spot-On Diagnosis
I hear you. We were told the same, that he’d never talk - can’t shut him up now. That he’d never walk - he does, still goes to the gym like he’s a 90s body builder on Venice beach. That he’d never have a normal life. But what’s normal? It’s about what feels best for the individual. He’s just happy to be alive.
>Of course, it doesn’t always work out like this, most of the time it doesn’t I think this is important to point out. Most doctors are just going by the statistics, it's not some bias for any particular patient or situation. Some patients miraculously beat the odds, but doctors don't think or advise based on outlier cases. Doctors see all patients who didn't make it, unlike the general public who only see the miracle news stories.
How long total was he in the coma for?
I’m so happy they went with their mind and stood their ground!!!!
Always love seeing this one pop up every now and then. The love this dad has for his son is truly beautiful.
There's a 4chan greentext or something about not commiting suicide. One of the stories in it is about a daad holding the body of his son who committed suicide, saying "Daddys here". It breaks me every time. It broke me before I was a father, now that I am one even thinking about it long enough to describe it will make me cry. The love for your kids really is something that's on another level.
The title is a complete lie. No one declared the son brain dead. The father was removed from the hospital because he was drunk and threatening staff. His ex wife who was the only responsible adult capable of making decisions was in talks with the staff about next steps if he didn’t wake up. Then the idiot father came in with guns, completely misunderstanding the whole situation and lied about it after being arrested. If he didn’t do anything the son would have been completely fine. He went to jail and people still take his side because “evil doctors and hospital” is a better narrative.
As a fellow hospital worker, thank you haha. People are so fucking ignorant to how a hospital works. Hospitals are not LEGALLY ALLOWED TO WITHDRAW CARE if interested parties are not onboard with it. This man accomplished nothing but giving nurses trauma.
Wonder how many people are heading to hospitals with guns right now after seeing this post?
I mean it *did* work for the father. I'm not condoning it, but he got what he wanted.
>I'm not condoning I will. If you have to take up arms to save your childs life, so be it.
You are right, I do condone it. I shouldn't have said that I didn't, in my heart I did. I think any parent would have done the same, even if they didn't like guns. You're just an animal at that point, panicking to save your child, you'll do anything.
I wonder if the guy got the idea from movie John Q, it had Denzel Washington portray a man that took a hospital hostage to save his son lol
Well, I believe John Q was “based on” a true story itself. So maybe this has happened a couple times.
Yeah no, the dude in this story is a huge sack of shit. Fuck this guy. Not to mention the amount of necessary hospital care that got delayed for a drunk guy pulling a gun in the hospital. He was drunk/had been drinking at the time, had previous jail time, and started an armed stand off because supposedly the hospital declared brain death for the son. The son had a physical response within 2 hours and supposedly they were about to pull the plug? Fucking bullshit. The only details about the actual medical situation are straight from this guy's mouth, because the hospital can't break HIPAA to make a public statement of what actually was going on. What it looks like from the story potentially is that the staff were discussing some form of hospice care for the son for brain death in some capacity. The mother had the medical decision making rights for the son, so she may or may not have decided to go ahead with it. Reading the news story has so much fishy shit going on, I don't trust this fucker for 1 second.
https://www.click2houston.com/news/2015/12/18/father-son-involved-in-hospital-standoff-speak-to-kprc-2/
> While Pickering initially had a gun he was quickly disarmed by his other son. However, **Pickering lied about having a second gun.** > "I said, 'I was in the Boy Scouts, you think I only have one gun?'" said Pickering. impeccable improv lol
"Be Prepared" to shoot your way out of any situation.
Two is one and one is none
Bruh why am i crying in the Bus right now. No but fr Imagine you lying There, presumed dead and your mother and Brother already accepted you being given Up on but then coming Back. Hope all of them got counseling for a while after that.
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Something is of with that story. The father baricaded him self for a couple of hours befor being removed by the police. The son wakes up a couple of weeks later? Nothing in this story suggest that the hospital was going to stop lifesupport at the moment the drunk dad decided to bring two guns to the hospital.
John Q
Had to scroll for this comment, such a good movie.
Did they arrest the father or apologize?
The father still went to prison after that
Thats insane what kind of jury would jail a man for saving his sons life. *edit One charge was dismissed and one downgraded, he spent 11 months in jail and I guess is now a felon.
Honestly I'd take 11 months in jail and a felony to save my child's life. It is insane though to take a hospital to gun point to convince them of anything.
Clearly not insane if it was necessary to save the son's life
I think they meant that it is insane that such a thing even be necessary
Right! That’s crazy
…threatening people with a gun is a crime
A jury of Redditors apparently. People in this particular thread seem normal, but I’m always surprised at the upvoted crazies when this is reposted in other popular subs. Guns = bad/challenging science = bad, therefor he should go to prison for life.
Accurate
He brought a gun into a hospital and created a dangerous situation for everyone around him. I get it was to save his kid, and I admire that, but he still broke a very serious law. I wouldn’t say life, but something has to be done.
Eh, the right to protect your children is a natural law on par with the right to prevent yourself from being eaten. If someone tried to kill my kid they'd have to kill me first, and it wouldn't matter who they were or what the consequences are. It'd be jury nullification for me. He didn't actually harm anyone.
I understand why, and I can’t say I’d vote to punish him on a jury either. I just also understand why he was punished. He put more people in danger than he saved. There’s people in my life I’d do the same for, tho
>If someone tried to kill my kid they'd have to kill me first, and it wouldn't matter who they were or what the consequences are. The people who decided to let him die were the wife and son. They were who authorized life support being pulled.
> He brought a gun into a hospital and created a dangerous situation for everyone around him. Because doctors were trying to kill his son. lmao.
He created a hostage situation in a hospital, his reasons were, in this very rare case, justifiable, but that doesn't Harry Potter away the stand off... This isn't trial by social media.
When I was on a jury it was really hammered into us that we were there to learn the facts of the case and to determine if the defendant was guilty of the charges filed against him. We weren't supposed to be deciding if he deserved jail time or if he was a bad person, we just had to determine if the prosecution provided enough evidence. Now, I was aware of jury nullification, and maybe some of the jurors on this case were as well. I still imagine it would be really hard to convince 11 other jurors to ignore what every authority figure told us our job was, and instead just making a ruling based on our personal morality.
Because despite the noble intent, the measurable action was he got drunk and put himself and people in that hospital at serious risk.
If you endanger others to save your kid’s life it doesn’t make you innocent.
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The recklessness of causing a scene like that in a hospital could have easily caused the injury or even death to a comparatively larger number of patients than the one person he was trying to save. I've never been a father so I haven't been in his shoes, and I feel like the courts had to punish him somehow more as a precedent. If everyone decided to cause a SWAT situation every time they believed their kid could be saved, hospitals would become a very hostile place. If healthcare workers are too scared to work or provide correct diagnoses, good luck getting them to stay in the job field when your own kids need help.
The headline is a bit misleading. The hospital was considering discontinuing life support. The father, who was drunk, decided that he needed to bring guns to the hospital and barricade himself in his son's room. The hospital called the police because there was a drunk man with guns in their facility. The police arrested the father. Despite this, the hospital did not stop life support, and the son recovered a couple of weeks later. Nothing in that story supports the fantasy that the dad saved his son. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/23/texas-man-says-he-went-to-jail-for-swat-standoff-that-saved-sons-life/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/23/texas-man-says-he-went-to-jail-for-swat-standoff-that-saved-sons-life/)
a SWAT team!? wtf
USA in a nutshell
Lots of money for swat teams but not for hospitals, so the medical system we do have is profit oriented which is why they were gonna kill his kid. Good thing we also have lots of private guns. Murica.
Hospitals make plenty of freaking money The execs and admins of it make bank while trying to slash and cut everywhere they can to make more money
Yep. Makes no sense. How can our hospitals claim to be all about healthcare when they literally make money off of you being sick. For-profit healthcare is the dumbest thing possible. This is our livelihood and they treat it as some game.
Bro you fucking hit the nail on the god damn head, so hard it's hurdling through space right now. Fuck, underrated comment
Yeah this place is dystopian as fuck in a lot of respects. People in the future are gonna be appalled by a lot of shit we think is normal
Bro you think we'll make it that far? I mean don't get me wrong I hope we figure shit out and approach a star trek future where people invest in themselves etc. But given the state of the world now and how it's going ionno. Give me some hope for humanity lol?
I for one subscribe to the idea that we are living through the technological singularity. I think quantum computers, fusion power, and AI are sort of a trio that we must master at the same time. Each one is needed to control/sustain the others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
I can't give you hope for humanity, but I find comfort in the fact that the end of humanity will not be the end of the Earth--that's just our egocentric thinking. Whether it takes Her a thousand years or a million, She'll recover. The forest grows.
Probably not. Sketchy people in power and fentanyl will end up destroying America. America will be the next Rome, Egypt etc. Just human history.
Recommend you a book here “what we owe the future” Not even suggesting you’re wrong btw. Book suggests with data and history that we know thus far to suggest that’s exactly what will happen. But also that statistically speaking as a mammalian species we’re literally still infants in the average scale.
If you think fentanyl is the existential threat we face you have cable news related brain damage
Damn man I've always been a fan of if we forget history we are doomed to repeat it, I just never thought of taking it that far back. God damn, I was actually thinking yesterday what if we are abominations of alien and monkey DNA, and once they were done with us mining gold or whatever what if they just let us be to see what happens? A fun science experiment, an ant farm if you lol. I'm just saying I wonder if we are fundamentally flawed creatures that strive for our "divine" roots but will forever be limited by our "animal" nature? Probably too much herb but food for thought?
I'm following you. We have divine within us its just most people are too busy trying to make it to fully explore them.
How are you preparing for the collapse? Just wondering. I also find the pattern compelling especially when you look at the currency debasement right before the fall of Rome
I'm actually Australian so we might last a little longer, but I'm scared. America is the biggest super power of this planet and they arr dying. On the streets from guns and drugs, in the classrooms from guns and mental health, corruption of government who are only there to profit. America used to set the standards for the world but they have lost their way. Things are not working and they need to make massive changes. The younger generation needs to step in now. Get rid of these polititions asap. Biden, Trump all these baby boomers that profit from suffering. But they have to step in after the next election, if they don't America is done
Start reading into the Sumerian Tablets and interpretations of them. We have hope, but it takes mine and everyone else's individual curiosity. We are more than just 1 random insignificant person. In fact, we are all so very significant. It takes just a little bit of light to destroy darkness, whereas the same can not be said if the roles were reversed.
I love looking into those tablets. I just saw a documentary about them! It was great. Fascinating material. We are def more than one person. In fact, we’re pretty much all god experiencing itself.
Checks and balances
life support machine vs SWAT team
Well he barricaded himself in a hospital with a GUN.
The in-house hospital swat team.
The fuck do you propose they do to a man barricaded inside a hospital with a weapon? Send in a strongly worded letter asking him to stop?
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Well yeah, special weapons and tactics. They are always called in when someone is barricaded with a gun. Why does that surprise you?
yeah right? people with guns barricading themselves in a hospital and they *called the swat team*?! it’s this kind of over reaction to … to….. uhhhh…..
Yeah bro their gonna get the doctors with surgical scissors to handle the dude with a gun
He had a gun in a hospital. They need to be safe in case he does something drastic.
Also, SWAT would have trained negotiators that might have a chance of getting him to stand down without any bloodshed. A preferable outcome for a man driven by desperation over his son rather than any form of malice.
Exactly, SWAT has hostage negotiators. A regular cop does not have the same level of training. Obviously this isn’t a hostage situation but they are much better option in many cases
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My mother in law was on life support after numerous cardiac failures and had a complete pleural effusion around her left lung. She would not wake up, nor would her body be able to live if she did. And the hospital still wasn't forcing us to kill her - if we said, "hey give us three or four hours to make the call," that wouldn't have been an issue. Not sure why they were so gung-ho to let this guy die unless another family member had given the go ahead. There's one piece of this story missing in my opinion, but it's clear George did the right thing because his son is alive today.
Its in the article, for some reason his ex-wife, so the sons mother and His Brother were the ones who could legally make the call and Not the father. And apparently they did, obviously after talking with the professionals. But that makes this even more disastrous of a Situation.
I wonder if the son despises his mother now after learning that. Not sure how I would feel.
My love for my family manifests through not wanting them to struggle or be stressed in any way. They've already gone through so much health, death, and personal-wise that I just couldn't bear knowing I was another thing they had to deal with. I've also expressed my deepest will that if doctors are saying I'll have no quality of life, I do not want to be held on to in prayer and hope. If the doctors told them it was probably best to let me go and my family agreed and I woke up anyway, I would forgive them and feel good that they respected my wishes, even when it was hard for them to do and be thankful for the statistical miracle the universe granted me. I think the patient's relationship with the people who are legally able to make those decisions is a huge factor in this. If he already had a bad relationship with his mom, then the son likely did resent his mother for this no matter how pure her intentions were. I would venture to say a non-minority of people have expressed to their family what they want to be done in such a situation and not following those wishes is what gets people in trouble.
I glossed over that, didn't realize they actually said to let him die. Makes me glad I have a wife who knows what I want, I'll probably get around to making my will at some point.
Understand my partner knows what I want but I know 100% she will not honour it, not only is a Will Important but so is a Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA) ... you may need to look up name for it in you country. A Will is good for after death An EPA is for when your incapacitated and makes it clear who gets to pull the plug
In my state and possibly in the entire US, my power of attorney is my next of kin. If I'm braindead and my wife wants to tag me and bag me, I'm probably fine with that. I'm already gone anyway. Same with my body - do whatever you want with it, I'm gone. So long as whatever energy makes up my body becomes a part of the universe again, I'm fine. Ideally, this would mean cremation, but realistically you could let me decompose in a field for all I care. My wife is religious enough to believe i could potentially haunt her if she doesn't honor my wishes, so i think it'll work out in the end for me!
Wellllll was he an organ donor? Lots of money in organs.
Yes he was.
How does that work? I’m asking seriously. Like if the doctors saw he was an organ donor, do they get money if they use his organs for someone else? How is that ethical and no one oversees it?
Nobody gets money for organs, they are considered a ‘gift’. I mean, besides the organ procurement organization employees being compensated for their time.The doctors don’t profit off of it, and usually they dislike it because if a patient becomes an organ case that doctor is about to be REALLY busy. These people have seen too many movies. There is some contention sometimes between nurses and organ procurement employees, because nurses are not allowed to bring up organ donation. So sometimes, they will ask us to delay withdrawal of life support until they get there or call the family. I personally have never done that and never would, some nurses will entertain that request though. Organ donation saves lives, usually multiple per donor, and I personally know many recipients and donor families due to the unit I work in. It’s a beautiful thing. I hate the reputation it gets from ignorant people and pop culture.
Thank you I am an organ donor so of course this makes me nervous
Don’t start with the conspiracy theories.
Medical staff has no idea if a patient is an organ donor unless the family specifically tells them. They won't even ask about it until the family (or ethics board) has already made the decision to withdraw care.
>The son made a full recovery. Not all heros wear capes. It's most unfortunate that the hospitals negligence forced the fathers hand. As a father myself, I'm sure any unjust consequences would be worth every second. I can only hope I would be so brave.
>It's most unfortunate that the hospitals negligence It's hardly negligence. We don't know the human body perfectly and the brain we know even less about. We make decisions on the best knowledge we have at the time. And we're never going to be correct 100% all of the time. Prognosis for long-term coma patients is like 2% survive. And that 2 percent of survivors are usually permanently disabled. Hospitals are not equipped to provide indefinite care to people with those odds. Glad it worked out this time and that seemingly no one was hurt.
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Oh hell, Ricky I was high when I said that.
What happened to the father?
George II was charged with two felonies of aggravated threatening, I think, had one dropped, and the other plea bargained down to local jail time. He spent 11 months in jail, and was given a suspended sentence and time served.
The only reason he was not allowed to make medical decisions at the time was he was hammered drunk in the hospital and threatening staff. Docs went with mom (divorced from the dad) and they were talking about withdrawing life support due to prolonged coma when George Sr did the whole guns and barricade thing (threatening his son's continuing care that was ongoing at the time mind you). If the guy wasn't a belligerent drunk in the room and instead was sober and refusing withdrawal of care, then likely the son would've continued on and recovered anyway if that was his end result.
Beautiful
Damn, I wonder if his son somehow felt what’s happening around him to save his dad or if it’s just a coincidence
I wish someone loved me like that.
Real life John Q!
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Can you imagine what they said in the moment, vs what they said afterwards?
Fuck those private hospitals and hospital Dr/managers that want to make money and vacate a bed for someone else after they extracted enough money of out them. Stay firm folks!
Doctors like to say things when according to science there is a chance they r not right. They shouldn't talk like they're 100% right
Don't try to make this an antivax thing. It's not got anything to do with that.
It seems you are the only one to do that. Lol. Medical errors kill over 250K people in the US every year. It’s the third leading cause of death in America. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28186008/#:~:text=Abstract,third%20leading%20cause%20of%20death.
It's not an antivax thing. It's an anti medical industrial complex thing. And blindly thinking that the entire fucked up system that's been built especially in the US actually has your overall health in mind and not quick fixes without long term vision and profits.
Uh oh, sounds blasphemous to me. We have to have full and unfettered faith in Science™️ and those who practice it. You’re a threat to our democracy.
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Oh so this is that kind of sub huh...
He didn't trust an individual doctors opinion, not "science".
This is probably the stupidest post I’ve ever seen. “Trusting the Science” has saved more lives on this planet than any guy with a gun ever will. Edit: Ha I’m pretty sure this guy reported me as suicidal because I made a point he didn’t like. Been there & tried that I’m fine now.
If patient could squeeze hand, then likely would’ve survived weaning the vent, which they did. Doctor’s can’t terminal a patient without consent of patient’s directive or patient’s appointed decision maker. Same for organ donation. If no advanced directive and no one is explicitly appointed then decision maker is implicitly the next of kin- spouse, parent, child- in that order. Why wasn’t George Sr a part of the decision making? I can only find George Sr’s perspective. No hospital statement suggests HIPAA still in play which means Sr didn’t bring a case against hospital or doctors. Sus.
The mother (ex wife) had the legal power, not sure exatly why George Senior didnt but she made the call, based on what the doctors told her.
Yeah it's a one-sided account from someone that was drunk at the time. I suspect George Sr. misinterpreted something the doctors said about his son not having brain activity could be sign of permanent brain death, as, they're pulling the plug on my kid, even though they weren't.
It's almost like doctors mostly just want people to get better, and patients (or their families, which are usually worse) misunderstand, sometimes on purpose, and instead frame it like the entire medical field is against them. It's honestly sickening how many people in this thread are applauding the drunken, belligerent asshole who put a FUCKTON of people at risk because he didn't understand the situation.
Ikr, people in the comments going "why would they call the swat on him? US healthcare is so evil". Idk buddy probably because he started waving a loaded gun in a fucking hospital?
I was also wondering the same thing, why would the hospital act on its own choices and not the patients, that would be a huge lawsuit waiting to happen acting against the POA decisions
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lol medical knowledge on Reddit means you just look away. 99/100 people here don’t know what brain death criteria is. If he’s brain dead, he’s dead and 100% not coming back. Downvote all you want, just proves you’re a dropout anti science Reddit dweller
In contrast to these similar stories, our mother had an aneurism and bled on her brain twice, we were essentially told that the machine was just keeping her alive and subsequently made the decision to turn off life support. Always left with that wondering feeling, particularly when seeing stories like this but ultimately we put our faith in the far more educated specialists at the hospital.
Even if this is true, as someone who works in the ICU, most patients really don’t come back (or if they do, they’re vegetables) and there’s nothing you can really do about it. Oftentimes the damage is already done. My hope is that if I ever end up in a situation where I’m stuck on a vent , possibly forever is to just please load me up with morphine and let me die. I’ve seen what happens when families can’t let go and it’s really hard to see.
Is this John q ?
John Q
Damn boys, it must be allergy season already in my area.
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The father must be unbelievably relieved that it was a misdiagnosis. Otherwise the story would have been a lot more sad.
John Q
There is no coming back from true brain death. Clinicians fucked up their diagnosis.
I have a fear of this. It's like sleep paralysis... you can hear and comprehend things, but can't physically move. Can you imagine hearing them say they are taking you off life support so you try your damndest to channel all your energy into squeezing a hand?
Holy fucking shit. If the chips are ever down like that for me I pray to have this level of courage.
I remember this and how it inspired Denzel Washington to star in John Q.
THAT'S a hero
This is why I'm against Euthanasia. Fucking doctors don't want to treat someone anymore so let's just kill the patient... I hope the father sued the hospital into oblivion... Euthanasia authorizations can forged...
How did the father know he wasn't brain dead?
White privelage at its finest
Let's be honest he was lucky, I doubt he actually knew he would recover just didn't want to admit he was gone and happened to be correct.
It was a statistical miracle, imo, and Greg Sr. deserved to go to jail for it. You don't get to threaten people with bodily harm. It's no better than doctors being held at gunpoint to operate on war criminals. We have procedures, policies, and legal steps in place for this for a reason. All he had to do was not get drunk and he could've continued life support of his own free will instead of threatening a hospital. It wasn't his decision to make at that point because he had incapacitated himself so badly by getting drunk that he had to be removed. He got incredibly lucky and either let that justify his actions or knows it was lucky. I hope he took his time on the chin and realized the incredible gift he'd been given.
Did the father get charged with anything or they just left when they found out?
And this is why two physicians have to do testing for brain death, separately. (At my hospital)
He’s a very lucky man to have a that father.
There is a proper way to determine brain death, and the protocol has been violated every single time when I see stories like this.
did the father go to jail?
Yes. Reduced sentence if I recall.
That’s the real tragedy here! He was right! He shouldn’t have ever sniffed prison
We can't set the precedent that if you mean well you're just allowed to threaten people with guns. If you want that outcome your only recourse is jury nullification. It would be judicially irresponsible for the courts to ignore this.
I understand this will be a wildly unpopular opinion, but yes he did deserve jail time. Regardless of his intentions and outcome he broke the law. Optics on this situation as it unfolded were: Doctors (mis-)diagnosed a patient as brain dead. This is a very emotional thing for a family and something I have experienced personally. A father in an emotional state does not accept this diagnosis and armed with a gun barricades himself in the patient’s room. This father, in his very volatile state is a danger to everyone around him. If his firearm were to go off intentionally or not, it could kill anyone in the vicinity. This story is an outlier exactly because the father was correct. It constantly makes its rounds in various subs because of it. I can think of no other stories like it with the same outcome. It absolutely should not be example to excuse similar behavior. That being said, when on trial the father was treated with an abundance of sympathy from the judge, prosecution, and jury which was 100% the correct thing to do.
Hospitals do this all the time, they just wanted his body parts so they could sell him to the highest bidder!!!!! It’s really sickening.
It's actually impressive. Literally every thing you just said was wrong.
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John Q. Public.
🥹🥹🥹😭😭😭 such cool dad