July 11, 2000

7:57 PM

I can still remember and old ER co-worker's comment when they wheeled in a completely paralyzed pt "they should just let him go" and apparently this guy acted on his belief with some carefully calculated criteria.
posted by greyscale (2 comments total)

If someone expresses their wish to be euthanised, due to extreme pain or loss of all life quality, that's one thing. But a wish to not be resuscitated is much different from a wish to be actively killed. This man took these patients' lives against their wishes. Murder, plain and simple, no different than if he'd pumped bullets into their brains.

I wouldn't touch a defendant like this with a twenty foot pole.
posted by Dreama at 8:14 PM on July 11, 2000

"Currie said the hospital worker told him some of the deaths were caused by lethal injections; others were caused by decreasing oxygen to patients on ventilators."Okay, so I agree that the lethal injections were active killing, which is not what the patients asked for, but decreasing the oxygen on a ventilator is pretty much the definition of resuscitation.
posted by deckard at 9:45 PM on July 11, 2000