"That has to be addressed…because pain is complicating recovery."

August 2, 2019 6:28 PM

He’d been kept alive with breathing and feeding tubes, and until a month before his birthday party in January 2016, he’d been known only as “Sixty-Six Garage.” That was the name on his hospital bracelet, the name on the door to his room, the name on the sign above his bed, the name the state of California used to pay the nursing home for his care. It’s the name he probably would have been buried with if Ed Kirkpatrick, director of the Villa Coronado Skilled Nursing Facility, hadn’t let me into Room 20 — Garage’s room.

Joanne Faryon in the LA Times: Who is he, and is it possible he's conscious? (via)
posted by Johnny Wallflower (15 comments total)

A moving story JW. I'm sorry to say I went in braced for a dog or poop angle.
posted by zaixfeep at 7:27 PM on August 2, 2019 [2 favorites]

Moving is the right word. I'm so glad they were able to at least find out who he was. But I'm so upset by a lot of other things in this story. This is a good read.
posted by limeonaire at 7:42 PM on August 2, 2019 [5 favorites]

Well, there was a little bit of one of those.
posted by inexorably_forward at 7:52 PM on August 2, 2019 [1 favorite]

Thank you for sharing this.
posted by sallybrown at 8:51 PM on August 2, 2019

I remember reading about him back when they first discovered his identity. I had hoped there would be some major development in the update, but life rarely gives what we hope for
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:52 PM on August 2, 2019 [4 favorites]

I fervently hope that if I ever end up in such a state that whoever has the legal rights over me at that point has the grace to let me go.
posted by Candleman at 10:05 PM on August 2, 2019 [13 favorites]

There are three sources of horror in this story. First is that the Border Patrol caused the wreck in an insane chase to get their man. Second, that a man has been in a bed, only dimly aware of life itself, for 20 years. And third, that it was 16 years before officialdom could be cajoled into taking the ridiculously simple step of fingerprinting this man to see if his identity could be learned.

Arthur C. Clarke told us, "The intelligence of the planet is constant, and the population is growing." I believe the same can be said of empathy.
posted by bryon at 10:33 PM on August 2, 2019 [27 favorites]

I fervently hope that if I ever end up in such a state that whoever has the legal rights over me at that point has the grace to let me go.

We can't just let a person who cannot breathe or eat die - that would be "playing God"!
posted by thelonius at 3:26 AM on August 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

I fervently hope that if I ever end up in such a state that whoever has the legal rights over me at that point has the grace to let me go.

You want a living will, AKA advance health care directive. It's a legally-binding document that you can get a lawyer to write, or there are forms you can download.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:38 AM on August 3, 2019 [4 favorites]

Thanks for sharing. To me this was one of those "look for the helpers" scenarios. "No olvidados" indeed.
posted by drlith at 5:48 AM on August 3, 2019 [2 favorites]

There's a podcast about this case, called Room 20, that I just started listening to.
posted by selfmedicating at 8:03 AM on August 3, 2019 [2 favorites]

This is heartbreaking. When I was young I worked as a nurse's aid and took care of patients with traumatic brain injury. Most were victims of car accidents, some teenagers. It terrified me so much, especially for the parents of these kids.
posted by waving at 8:05 AM on August 3, 2019

Thanks for the heads-up, selfmedicating. Here's an interview with the reporter.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:14 AM on August 3, 2019

So with the new policy, in the last 4 years, the Border Patrol has killed 22 people and injured 250 in crashes while chasing suspects. That's with the new policy. And how are they not obligated to track down the identities and families of those they hurt? And pay costs to those whose loved ones are killed or so profoundly disabled?

A story like Ignacio's makes me sympathize with those who support the death penalty, but then I think, "How can we execute the State?"
posted by allthinky at 9:22 AM on August 3, 2019 [5 favorites]

You want a living will, AKA advance health care directive. It's a legally-binding document that you can get a lawyer to write, or there are forms you can download.

Having a lawyer or other disinterested party to carry out your wishes as a binding health care power of attorney tends to work better. There are always subtleties and edge cases that make specifying what you'd like in perfect detail impossible, so your next of kin or power of attorney ends up having to make a decision much of the time (with a few exceptions like hard no-cpr rules). Also, I guess you have to hope that they bother identifying your unconscious body.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 2:11 PM on August 3, 2019 [6 favorites]