PITTSBURGH-Lawsuit claims Pa. doctors caused 18-year-old accident victim to suffocate.

The parents of an 18-year-old Ohio man who suffered a brain injury while snowboarding claim in a lawsuit that doctors at a northwestern Pennsylvania hospital intentionally killed him so they could harvest his organs.

The lawsuit claims that Hamot Medical Center doctors and a representative of the Center For Organ Recovery and Education caused Gregory Jacobs' death by administering medication and by removing his breathing tube, causing him to suffocate.

"But for the intentional trauma or asphyxiation of Gregory Jacobs, he would have lived, or, at the very least, his life would have been prolonged," the lawsuit said.

The suit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh by Jacobs' parents, Michael and Teresa Jacobs, of Bellevue, Ohio. It seeks more than $5 million for their son's pain and suffering, medical bills and funeral expenses, plus punitive damages.

Lucia Conti, a Hamot spokeswoman, said the hospital had not seen the lawsuit, but its policy is to not comment on litigation. The Center for Organ Recovery and Education, a Pittsburgh-based organization that helps hospitals procure donated tissue, also declined to comment.

Jacobs fell on March 8, 2007, while snowboarding at Peek 'n Peak Ski Resort in Findley Lake, N.Y., and was flown to the Erie hospital, the lawsuit said.

The suit claims Hamot contacted the Center for Organ Recovery and Education about the donation of Jacob's organs even though his parents, who were at the hospital, wanted him to live. CORE directed that Jacob's organs be removed in the absence of a valid consent, the suit said.

"Gregory was alive before defendants started surgery and suffocated him in order to harvest his organs" including his heart, liver and kidneys, according to the suit.

The suit said Jacobs "experienced neither a cessation of cardiac activity nor a cessation of brain activities when surgeons began the procedures for removing his vital organs."

The suit said the Center for Organ Recovery and Education benefited by obtaining Jacob's organs "for transfer and sale to other individuals, who then paid money, a portion of which went to CORE, for the wrongful procurement of the organs."

Shows how stupid these people are. Anyone who knows anything about this knows that when organs are being harvested the breathing tube remains in place until all organs are procured. This allows the organs to stay oxygenated and most viable until the last possible minute to allow a better success at transplantation.

And the sad part is, they found a lawyer dumb enough to file the case.

I didn't know that! Where do you get the tubes?

Sometimes i put them in. All it is is an endotracheal tube. It goes into the trachea, down to the lungs. It is the way patients are connected to the ventilator when their respiratory effort is not sufficient. Most people that have had a major surgery and have been put to sleep via anesthesia have had one in place. It was just removed most of the time before they were awake enough to realize it. (Yeah, I do this kind of stuff for a living)

This is what they look like...

http://www.myrespiratorysupply.com/images/ET%20cuff%207.5mm.JPG

I always said that you were the man...and now you keep proving me right....thank you for the lesson in health care......:worship::worship::worship::worship:
Tony

Since when does any organization have the right to have organs harvested?? Especially when the parents were there. The lawsuit says the patient had brain and heart activity!!
No one here will know what happened for sure. But IF it is proven this young man had brain and heart activity... Well no matter what the quality of life, had he survived of been. This CORE organization had absolutely no right whatsoever to order the removal of this young man's organs. I hope they get ever single penny they can get out of this very sad situation...

If it was done without consent, then yes, the procurement group is wrong. But it is perfectly normal, actually a necessity that there is heart activity for the harvesting to be done. And there has to to be minimal brain activity, generally just the brain stem region, to keep the heart beating and pumping blood to the other organs.

And there are many organizations that their only mission is to harvest organs from dead or dying people. Here, the organizations are supposed to be called on every death.
And while it may be a sad situation that it is a young person that has died, the lawsuit is more than likely just a feeble and stupid attempt by a family that is in denial that their dead family member is gone. Or just trying to get something for nothing. It would be unheard of for a procurement company or hospital to carry out this procedure without someone signing a release for it.

wow! definitely interesting info. Thanks alot for the health info an explanation on this, I appreciate it Kenmo.

-Good Read....WOW.....Nice to know these things

As sad as this sounds, it could be worse. Don't travel to countries like Russia and get a major illness while there that requires hospitalization. You might wake up after surgery missing a kidney. But there are other reasons why I will not be visiting that country though I have friends there. Their treatment of people of colour being one of them. I'm just waiting for Obama's first official visit to that country. That will be something to see...

It would be interesting to see IF one of or both of the parents signed the necessary legal release form's. I know organ donation is a very important part of saving a life in the midst of someone dying from a number of causes. IF the couple didn't sign any consent forms... Oh will there be hell to pay!!!