Paralyzed Man Chooses To End Life Support
DECATUR, IN- Doctors removed the ventilator tube of Timothy “Tim” Bowers at his request after he suffered a debilitating injury while deer hunting in the woods of Decatur, Indiana. Tim was paralyzed after he fell from a deer stand and suffered a major spinal injury. He was unable to move or breath on his own and so his family asked doctors to bring him out of sedation so they could ask him what he wanted to do with his options. They told him that he could have surgery to fuse his vertebrae but he wouldn’t be able to walk or live outside of a hospital ever again. His sister Jenny Schultz said, “We just asked him, ‘Do you want this?’
Bowers shook his head. He had this discussion with his family before and indicated he didn’t want to spend life in a wheelchair. Doctors questioned him repeatedly on whether or not he wanted the tube to be removed. He responded the same. He didn’t want to stay. “I just remember him saying so many times that he loved us all and that he lived a great life,” Schultz said. “At one point, he was saying, ‘I’m ready. I’m ready.'”
Director of the Charles Warren Fairbanks Center for Medical Ethics in Indianapolis Dr. Paul Helft said that cases in which the patient makes the decision are those which compromise the body, but leave the mind intact. “We give patients autonomy to make all kinds of decisions about themselves,” he said. “We’ve recognized that it’s important that patients have the right to self-determination.”
Bowers was married just this August and left behind a pregnant wife, stepson and “Baby Bowers”.
Should anyone be allowed the right to choose to die if they wish? Leave your comments and thoughts below.