Lethal Problems with Medical Futility and Disability Bias

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(NancyValko) – In 2018, Chris Dunn survived a freak diving accident that left him paralyzed, mostly blind and on a ventilator to breathe. He spent most of the next year in an ICU in rural Maine.

Unable to see, eat, breathe or move on his own, the 44 year old father and concrete work spent his days in bed listening to the History Channel and hoping for a chance to show he could do more.

Efforts to find a rehab center failed. Even worse, hospital administrators and others were encouraging Chris’s mother Carol to put him in hospice to die. As the article states:

“Drugged up and confined to bed, Chris waited while dealing with a hospital staff that didn’t know what to do with him. ‘There would be nurses that would come in and tell me, ‘You know you’re making your son suffer,’ says Carol. ‘I mean, what’s a mother to do with that?’” (Emphasis added)

However, Carol refused to give up trying to find help for Chris and after 7 months, finally contacted the United Spinal Association. Jane Wierbicky, a longtime nurse and a member of the Association’s Resource Center team worked to help find a rehab center in Atlanta. CONTINUE