It was 21 years ago today, Feb. 25, 1990, that a healthy 26-year-old named Terri Schiavo was found unconscious, without a pulse and not breathing in the Florida apartment she shared with her husband.
Schiavo's mysterious collapse and associated brain injury set into motion an unprecedented 11-year court battle that pitted Michael Schiavo, who sought to end the life of his incapacitated wife, against her parents and siblings who fought to preserve it. The familial tug of war ultimately reached the level of the U.S. Supreme Court and galvanized the life debate worldwide.
Contrary to media reports, Schiavo was neither brain dead, dying, in a coma nor kept alive artificially by machines. The brain-injured woman breathed on her own and appeared cognitively responsive to her mother in photographs and video released by her family.
She relied on a feeding tube for nourishment.
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Doctors who treated the resuscitated Schiavo at Humana Hospital in St. Petersburg could not come up with any cause for her cardiopulmonary arrest. A trial lawyer hired by Michael Schiavo to win a medical malpractice suit in 1992, floated the theory her sudden collapse was due to a potassium imbalance triggered by bulimia. Jurors bought the medically unfounded theory, awarding Michael Schiavo $1.5 million, and the theory became widely adopted as fact.
Schiavo's family and others suspect domestic violence was the more likely cause. Michael Schiavo's consistently shifting details given in interviews and court testimony about what time he discovered his wife lying on the hallway floor and in what manner she appeared does nothing to allay suspicions.
Following the medical examiner's release of Schiavo's autopsy report in June 2005, then-Gov. Jeb Bush called for an investigation by a state attorney into the matter, on the basis of the gap between the time when Michael Schiavo told the medical examiner he found her unconscious, or 4:30 a.m., and the time he placed a 911 call, which was 5:40 a.m.
En route to the hospital paramedics got Schiavo's heart beating by 6:32 a.m., but a measurable systolic blood pressure wasn't achieved until 6:46 a.m. Debate continues over the extent of brain damage Schiavo had suffered by then, whether she was in a persistent vegetative state, or PVS, and the prognosis for treatment.
Upon surfacing from a weeks-long coma, Terri Schiavo progressed in rehabilitative therapy to the point of speaking, according to her caregivers who recorded her uttering the words, "Mommy," "Stop that," "Pain," and "Help me." Shortly thereafter Michael Schiavo halted the rehabilitation and transferred her to a nursing home.
In 1995 Michael Schiavo hired a prominent right-to-die attorney and filed a motion to remove the feeding tube to precipitate Terri Schiavo's death, based on newly recollected conversations in which she allegedly expressed the wish to die if ever dependent on life support. She had no written advance directive.
It would not be until Nov. 13, 2002, that the plight of Terri Schiavo first came to the attention of the nation and the world in a story by WND news editor Diana Lynne. It would be the first of nearly 500 stories published by WND, ultimately elevating to the No. 1 story in the nation and the world, as millions followed the conclusion
to her court-ordered dehydration death on March 31, 2005.
It was also on Feb. 25, this time in 2005, that a Florida circuit court judge ordered the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube and additionally barred her receiving oral nutrition and hydration. Several appeals and federal government intervention followed, which included President George W. Bush returning to Washington, D.C., to sign
legislation designed to keep her alive.
After all attempts at appeals through the federal court system proved unsuccessful, Schiavo's feeding tube was disconnected on March 18, 2005. She died 13 days later.
Lynne was so moved by her involvement in the story, she later authored "Terri's Story: The Court-Ordered Death of an
American Woman" for WND Books.
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