Man declared dead, says he feels 'pretty good'

[Mugu]

OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma (AP) -- Zach Dunlap says he feels "pretty good," four months after he was declared brain dead and doctors were about to remove his organs for transplant.

Dunlap was pronounced dead November 19 at United Regional Healthcare System in Wichita Falls, Texas, after he was injured in an all-terrain vehicle accident. His family approved having his organs harvested.

As family members were paying their last respects, he moved his foot and hand. He reacted to a pocketknife scraped across his foot and to pressure applied under a fingernail. After 48 days in the hospital, he was allowed to return home, where he continues to work on his recovery.

On Monday, he and his family were in New York, appearing on NBC's "Today." "I feel pretty good. but it's just hard ... just ain't got the patience," Dunlap told NBC.


Complete article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/24/NotDead.ap/index.html

[mikelgb]

1. "I feel happy..."

[MorningGlow]

3. Gah! You beat me to it by a nanosecond!

"I think I'll go for a walk!"

[Rex]

2. Yikes!

Doesn't appear very brain dead. Good thing he 'woke up' before they cracked his chest open!

[drmeow]

4. I'm not dead. ... I'm not. ... I'm getting better. n/t

[Lorien]

6. "I think I'll do a little dance"! n/t

[Wickerman]

5. See, this is just like Terry Schiavo

:hide:


:sarcasm:

I am very glad for him and his family, I can't imagine what the ordeal has been like and how happy they are.

[damntexdem]

7. I'm getting better.

And all the rest of the Holy Grail dialogue.

[jazzjunkysue]

11. "I'm not quite dead, yet. I'm feeling much better!"

"Bring out your dead."
:hi:

[Runcible Spoon]

8. this is why I won't check that little box on my driver's license for organ donation

I mean, these things happen so rarely it's probably not a rational fear but stories like this just prove that hospitals can and do make many mistakes. The evidence may be merely anecdotal or it may have some real credibility, but understaffed hospitals and long seemingly hopeless donor lists may prompt some staff to jump the gun on cutting someone open too early, or in this case not properly declaring them alive. Stories like this freak me out. Chances are infinitely small it will ever happen to me because I am white, not homeless, have a family, and would hypothetically have ID on me. However the world can be an ugly place and sometimes people are treated as disposable, even in the subtle subconscious of an ER trauma doc.

That being said, I support laws which would automatically assume you donate unless you OPT OUT; I think it would go a long way to treating people equally in this matter. However the opt out issue would have to be addressed so that the homeless are not merely nameless faces in the hypothetical records of organ opt-outs either.

On edit: I DO want to donate my organs upon my death/irreperable brain damage but my family knows now to make sure as damn hell I'm actually beyond the point of no return!

[malaise]

9. I watched him on Dateline

last night. The only thing that pissed me off was the miracle nonsense.
The kid was really healthy and that more than anything else saved him.

IT was a lovely story.

[aikoaiko]

10. What were the names of his doctors?

:shrug:

[varkam]

12. It's a meerakul!

Not.

I heard this on the news, and of course they pumped it as a "miracle". Whenever I hear that word in reference to a news story, I can't help but vomit in my mouth a little bit. To further add to my pain, it was noted that this man "came back from the dead". :crazy:

He was never dead. Either the docs screwed up, the equipment malfunctioned, or both - either way, though, it was neither a miracle nor did he come back from the dead. As far as I know, once you're dead you're dead. There ain't no coming back from it.

[tabasco]

13. Was it a miracle when God threw him off the ATV.

Why didn't God just move the rock.

[varkam]

14. Because God hates him, apparently.

:evilgrin:

That's another thing - whenever someone just barely survives a freak accident, they always seem to say that angels were watching over them or some other such nonsense. They are, IMO, completely missing the point that God sent that lightning bolt / fireball / poodle with rabis to smite them.

[Thickasabrick]

15. This creeps me out - does a brain scan determine if you are brain dead

or not? Evidently it doesn't - so how many people were "offed" because of results like this? This really bothers me for some reason.

[MrSlayer]

16. " I don't want to go on the cart"

"Don't be such a baby."