A 10-year-old boy who was swept into a storm drain while helping his family clean up storm debris is being kept on life support so that his organs can be donated, according to his father.
The boy, Asher Sullivan, “officially passed away” on May 18, but remains on life support to facilitate the organ donation process, his dad, Jimmy Sullivan, wrote in a Facebook post.
“It’s 100% an ‘Asher’ type thing to do in continuing to be selfless,” Sullivan shared on Facebook. “He will have an honor walk at the hospital in the next few days and be celebrated as he is, a hero!”
The kid is going to save a lot of other lives by being an organ donor. I have no idea why people would opt out of being a donor.
People are convinced that if you are an organ donor doctors let you die on purpose.
People are morons.
It’s kinda the opposite, because for the fire brigade and emergency services the existence of organ harvesting incentives even ‘lost causes’ to be saved.
If you’re in the sort of country where people will kill you for your organs, I don’t think they’re in the habit of asking permission first…
Even dumber when you realize the hospital absolutely doesn’t need a little card to let you die.
Yeah, for decades I’ve heard that theory too. I’ve always thought of it as an urban myth.
Are you in the US? I wouldn’t dissuade anyone from being an organ donor, it’s obviously a great necessity and saves thousands of lives, but I’m always amazed that the bottomless skepticism of our for-profit healthcare system dries up on certain topics.
We all love to moan about greedy health insurance companies and hospital administrations putting profit above the actual health of patients and outcomes of procedures, so why is it taken for granted that, when faced with a decision to go to extraordinary lengths to save a badly injured, uninsured person, or get expensive organs for 3 or 4 insured people at the top of the recipient list, that the responsible parties will make the right decision? Hell, even without a profit motive, that can be a difficult decision that can be influenced by personal beliefs and biases.
I certainly don’t know enough about exactly how these decisions are made to have a strong opinion, but I don’t think it’s fair to characterize potentially warranted skepticism as moronic.
There’s just never been evidence to suggest (in any meaningful way) a doctor made a decision compromising the life of the organ donor to make use in other patients, that would be medical malpractice and the first people looking to sue you after a loved one dies are the ones signing the papers giving permission.
Calling the opinion moronic may not be nice, but the idea is something I’d say is foolish. Like if you went through life thinking vaccines are some kind of conspiracy for profit, the evidence just isn’t there and there’s enough of it on the contrary that to suggest it would be foolishness.
Don’t forget you can also donate your corpse to medical schools!
My father did this. He signed up for his body to be donated to science. He always told me, the minute he passes, there’s a card in his wallet with a phone number. Just call them and they’ll come out to pick up his body. That’s it; no funeral or anything. He didn’t believe in wasting money on a funeral or burial plot/coffin after he was dead. When they’re done with their research, they’ll return his cremated remains to us.
Sadly, I had to call that number a few months ago.
Your dad was a smart man. I too plan on avoiding the scummy funeral industry!
Uh… well… about scummy industries… I have what is perhaps slightly depressing news on that.
Your father is helping train the next generation of doctors!
In the US, at least, I believe you cannot specifically donate to medical schools. Generally you indicate that you’d like to be used to medical research or teaching, but that can be a wide variety of things.
To be clear, I still support and advocate for this, but believe people should be informed.
John Oliver has an interesting episode about what else that can mean in America https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn7egDQ9lPg
That’s what I meant Captain Pedantic. And I’m having a hard time figuring out what you think I meant? My body is going to the local state University for medical training and research. I mean, they sure aren’t going to working on healing my former body.
I’m not sure why my comment was met with such hostility. As I said, I support it, but wanted to add further context. A lot of people have this idea of donating their body to research meaning that they will be used to train students or something similar, but that is simply not always true and you don’t typically get to decide what they do with it. They may well end up putting your bones on display or doing something else “unsavoury” with it that might surprise a lot of people.
I really don’t care what happens to my former body once I’m dead. I’m not using it any more.
That’s great for you; my comments were not necessarily directed to you, they were adding context for any other readers.
That came across as if you were being facetious, but maybe I’m wrong. Tone is difficult to assess over text
Not facetious at all. At my local university, they pick up the body, use if for whatever and when done, they will cremate (mass) and return ashes to family if they want. Every dollar that doesn’t go to the funeral industry is a benefit to mankind.
It should be be an opt out system rather than an opt in.
I hear “the doctors will give up on me more easily” if they even have an argument they can put into words. Which seems ridiculous to me - if they even bother to check, it seems like they’d be more willing to put time and effort into keeping your body intact, giving you a better chance to bounce back despite long odds
Organ donation should be the default state, rather than an opt-in deal.
That is the case in Belgium.
It is not enforced tho. If you didn’t register as a donor, they will still ask the relatives, especially of they need to keep the body on life support after the person is declared dead.