Brain dead or actually dead?

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RandomAlias said:
I am not sure why you say that. Apparently someone suspected that he was brain dead, and the doctors intended to determine whether he was brain dead, but before they had a chance to make that determination he recovered.
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From what I read in the article, it sounds as though the boy was diagnosed as brain dead and organ donation was scheduled, when he began to recover. I don’t think he came back to life. He was not dead. Death is permanent. The question is whether a patient dies from an existing disease or trauma, or whether he dies from the removal of vital organs.
 
Cruciferi said:
What’s the rush in burying?
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Hygiene in that era. Dead bodies make people sick. Especially in the South, where heat made things worse.

I have a family split between VA/NC and PA/NJ. The difference in funerals is incredible, and it’s because historically burials were quicker due to the heat in the southern US.

Being buried alive was actually pretty uncommon, though it was a real fear in those days.
 
Monica83 said:
So often(particularly in countries with socialized medicine), being “close to brain dead” is enough to get you a brain dead diagnosis.
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Citations please.

There is cognitive death and there is brain stem death. And no, you don’t asphyxiate - you’re implying a death that just doesn’t occur. I’ve seen that word bounced around on multiple threads on this topic. That’s not what happens. Please, with all due respect, look up what the word actually means. End of the respiratory drive and what happens during death is not the same thing.
 
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JimG said:
Death is permanent.
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That is usually true. But not necessarily true. If the child’s brain was not functioning anymore, then medically speaking he was dead. Do you have any good reason to challenge the diagnosis of the child’s brain death beyond the notion that death is permanent?

The case in qeustion proves that brain death doesn’t necessarily mean permanent death. It may be a very unlikely event, but if it has happened then it has happened.
 
Things would be a lot simpler.when we knew - you live but yet expect one day you will for certain die. Modern medical.technology complicates things for all involved. My wild guess - it ain’t from.God. That leaves (…). So God bless him or her who woke up.
 
Mary888 said:
Things would be a lot simpler.when we knew - you live but yet expect one day you will for certain die. Modern medical.technology complicates things for all involved. My wild guess - it ain’t from.God. That leaves (…). So God bless him or her who woke up.
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I wouldn’t assume that the theological absolute notion of death is identical to a medical conception of death. Death. For the Christian, death occurs when the soul separates from the body permanently untill the resurection. Enough damage has to occur to the body or the brain in-order for this to happen.

It is entirely possible that the kid was dead in the medical sense, and yet was not dead in the Christian theological sense of the word. My argument is that if there is a possibility of the soul being united with the body, then absolute death will not occur until it is no-longer possible for the soul to be united with the body.
 
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When my grandpa died… I don’t know how damaged was his body since he was quite a healthy old fellow and one day he started to no longer be interested in life. I held his hand and told him some of his stories that he liked like he came from Sirius and now he is going back, seeing him weak and wanting to just go. Half an hour later he was gone. Dead that is. We kept the 3 days Christian vigil.
When you go, you go.
 
Nowhere does it say “every single person dies from asphyxiation”.

The usage of the term there is not the same.

Asphyxiation is suffocation - the forcible suppression of oxygenation. That’s not the same thing.
 
IWantGod said:
If the child’s brain was not functioning anymore, then medically speaking he was dead.
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No, medically speaking he was brain dead.

There is a massive difference in brain death and actual death.

You can be “brain dead”, and still breathe because the brain stem is not dead. The definition is the problem and how it’s interpreted is an even bigger one.
 
Pup7 said:
You can be “brain dead”, and still breathe because the brain stem is not dead. The definition is the problem and how it’s interpreted is an even bigger one.
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If you’re breathing on your own and not bloating, you’re alive in my opinion.
 
Brain dead means no measurable brain activity. Yes, essentially you are correct.

It is totally possible to be cognitively dead and have brain stem activity - but you’re never coming out of that state.

This is why the phrase is problematic. It’s not always a be all and end all even though it’s supposed to be. (Our technology is also improving, which is opening a can of worms here. I’m with the crowd that believes brain death is indeed death, because without the brain stem, you will not breathe on your own.)

If you’re breathing on your own, they’re not going to cut you open, no matter how far gone you are. We’re not barbaric body snatchers in my line of work (not saying you’re saying that, but there are a few comments here that are making me shudder and think that is what some believe).
 
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Suffocation just means “a condition of being unable to breathe.” Same with asphyxiation. I think thats how the Dutch Drs who wrote the article defined it too.
 
Pup7 said:
is totally possible to be cognitively dead and have brain stem activity - but you’re never coming out of that state.

This is why the phrase is problematic. It’s not always a be all and end all even though it’s supposed to be. (Our technology is also improving, which is opening a can of worms here. I’m with the crowd that believes
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Wait, on the one hand, you are saying that brain death does not mean that the brain stem is no longer functioning, but then you imply that brain death includes the non-functioning of the brain stem.

I am just confused and asking for clarification.
 
This is a wonderful story. Praise God he is alive.

But, I am an example of what brain dead people can do. I am brain dead right now while I am typing this.😲
 
Evidence of a vital faculty is evidence of the soul. The teaching that one may cease extraordinary measures to support life is certainly true but that is not the case under question. In the actions that follow a “brain dead” patient prior to harvesting organs, extraordinary measures are taken to support the patient’s life. Think about the phrase “life support.” The predicate is that the patient is alive.

The papal allocutions of Pius XII and St. JP II confirm that death is the separation of body and soul and the degree of knowing remain that of moral certitude. The church yields to the medical community the material determinations necessary to arrive at that moral certitude. No one organ, i.e. the brain, is the organizing principle of the human being. The medical community has configured tests to determine the presence or absence of brain activity. But is it sufficient to the level of moral certainty to call a person dead who only lacks brain activity? Brain death determines that the immaterial faculties (intellective) are not evidenced. But if the other material vital faculties of the soul (nutritive, augmentative, appetitive) are evidenced then the person is alive as these faculties, just as the intellective faculties, cannot operate without the presence of the soul.
 
If someone wakes up it means they were not dead.

Death is when the soul leaves the body in which case the person does not wake up.
 
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