Brain Dead Woman in Texas Removed From Ventilator/ Jahi McMath

Brain Dead Woman in Texas Removed From Ventilator

A woman declared brain dead in November remained on a ventilator to keep her heart beating despite her family's wish. The hospital citing Texas law that prohibits withdrawing life-sustaining care from pregnant women. Interestingly, the law the hospital wanted to comply with, shouldn't really apply to dead people. The woman was brain dead meaning by the Uniform Determination of Death Act that she was dead, beating heart or not, once you are brain dead there is literally no way for you to come back. Ironically lay people commonly define death as the cessation of the heart beat. But are you alive one second and die instantly once your heart beat ceases. Actually no. When your heart stops you are not dead, but you will be soon....that is if your brain continues without oxygen. The heart has the job of pumping blood to your body, 20% of your blood goes to your brain. So why is brain death viewed as less definitive than cardiac death. Obviously brain death is actually more definitive than cardiac death since we can bring you back if your heart stops for minutes you can still be resuscitated. But once your brain ceases to function in total and the cells die.....there are no brain transplants, no brain bypass, no replacement, for you.

Jahi McMath is another case of the tragedy that families who suffer a loss due to brain death with a beating heart. This young girl who suffered cardiac arrest with anoxic brain injury and subsequent brain death attracted a lot of attention as the family won a court battle to retain custody of her body and transfer her from the Oakland Children's Hospital where treating physicians wanted to proceed with removing the ventilator from Jahi's body.

Every time go swimming and put your head under the water you are just as close to death as someone with a stopped heart.  If you come up for air, if they get their heart started before the brain dies, you both live. Otherwise you drown. Someone during heart surgery on a heart bypass machine that breathes and pumps blood for them is alive, but they don't have a beating heart. Just as alive as a person with a beating heart and a dead brain is dead.