By:Dave Balut
Largo, Florida - Nearly three months after Terri Schiavo’s death, Pinellas County’s Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Jon Thogmartin says Schiavo died from dehydration after her feeding tube was removed. Dr. Jon Thogmartin: “The state of her fatty tissue also laboratory findings indicate that she did not starve to death. She died of dehydration”A specialist in neuropathology, Dr. Stephen Nelson, assisted with Schiavo’s autopsy. Nelson, the Chief Medical Examiner for Polk County, says Schiavo had less than half the brain weight of a normal adult.Dr. Stephen Martin, Polk Co. Chief Medical Examiner: “A normal brain weight for somebody who is approximately 41 years of age should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 12-hundred to 13-hundred grams. Her brain is 615 grams.”And Dr. Nelson says the autopsy results for Schiavo are consistent with the clinical definition of persistent vegetative state.Dr. Stephen Nelson:“Based on her anatomic findings of her brain, she is very definitely blind and would not be able to register any type of thought, cognitive understanding of what’s going on.” But the autopsy did not show what caused Terri Schiavo to collapse in February of 1990. Dr. Thogmartin says it wasn’t bulimia or a heart attack, but for some unexplained reason, the 26-year-old woman’s heart stopped in the middle of the night, causing the lack of oxygen to her brain.Dr. Jon Thogmartin: “The cause of which can not be determined with reasonable medical certainty. The manner of death will therefore be certified as undetermined.”Attorney George Felos says his client Michael Schiavo was pleased to hear the hard science of the autopsy results. George Felos, Michael Schiavo’s Attorney: “For years the treating physicians, the doctors, the responsible physicians, Mr. Schiavo, the court have said over and over again that there is no rehabilitation therapy or other therapy that could improve Mrs. Schiavo’s condition that was also found by the medical examiner.”But David Gibbs, the Schindler family’s attorney, says Terri Schiavo’s parents still don’t believe she was in a persistent vegetative state. David Gibbs, Schindler Family’s Attorney: “The condition of her as a corpse, as a dead person, obviously they did not have the advantage of walking in the room and watching Terri laugh or cry or respond.”Gibbs says the Schindler family still has not heard from Michael Schiavo about Terri's ashes. A court order requires Schiavo to tell the Schindler's about his plans, but his attorney declined to talk about it today.He did say Michael Schiavo will release autopsy photographs of Terri's brain in the near future, so people can see what the medical examiner found.
