on Terri Schiavo, with Keith and Gail and the BBB

Transcript of (part of) this morning's show.

8:07 am MST Mornings with Keith and Gail on 800 AM KCOL

K = Keith;
G = Gail;
BBB = Beautiful Belgian Babe

Additions in brackets are mine for clarity or obfuscation, as appropriate. Errors are almost certainly mine. -Crazy Diamond


K: 8:07 now on Mornings with Keith and Gail, newsradio 600 KCOL. About a week ago we got into this conversation about this study that came out that suggested that a good number of the estimated one hundred to three hundred thousand of people in this nation with significant brain damage may be prisoners within themselves. The study basically suggesting that thousands of brain-damaged people who are treated as if they are almost completely unaware of what’s going on around them may in fact hear and register what’s going on but be unable to respond. And it was chilling because we got into a conversation with you setting up this situation where What if, for example, you could see, and hear, and maybe even feel what was going on around you but there was absolutely no way you could communicate anything back in the opposite direction. You couldn’t move, you couldn’t move your eyes, right and left or up and down or blink, you couldn’t move a finger, you couldn’t talk, you couldn’t make any signal back because of a brain injury or brain damage, any signal back, but you could receive incoming information. Well, this study is suggesting that a lot of the people that we think are brain-damaged to the point where we think they are gone, may not be brain-damaged to that point and may be prisoners in their own situation. We got to thinking what would happen if you were in charge of deciding whether that person is to live or die. And before you decide quickly, the situation can flip on itself, because it’s entirely possible the person inside there does not want to continue living but can’t even communicate that. So – Terri Schiavo comes to mind.

G: And imagine if you were Terri Schiavo, or Terri Schiavo’s friends, and family, and the Terri Schiavo case today has reached a critical juncture. Terri Schiavo of course the young Florida woman that has been in a coma for the past fifteen years, many doctors calling it a “Persistent Vegetative State”, but the question is, “Is it? Is she able to respond to certain stimuli? Is she able to respond to her friends, her family, that come in, to music, to just basic feelings of love and support that her family provide her?” Her husband, who has moved on with his life, that has remained her husband for the past fifteen years, says No. Has hired a euthanasia attorney. The reason I say this case has reached a critical juncture is because today, at one p.m., there was a motion filed that seemingly has been approved by a circuit court, that will remove Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube, essentially starving her to death. Many people have become aware of this story, it’s tugged at their heartstrings, because it is one of those conundrums in life. And what would you do? Over a hundred and thirty bloggers nationwide have picked up the gauntlet and have now established their own blogsite, called triple-dub Terri’s fight dot org [Gail corrected this later in the show. The correct website is Blogs for Terri www.terrisfight.org is of course the official family site. – C.D.]. And we’re fortunate enough to be contacted by a Northern Colorado resident, [BBB], who actually is a blogger herself, and has gotten involved in the effort. [BBB], good morning.

BBB: Good morning.

G: Welcome to Mornings with Keith and Gail.

BBB: Thank you, glad to be here.

G: Tell us a little bit how you got involved with this entire effort to save Terri’s life.

BBB: Well, I remember when it first came out, back in the nineties. I had heard about it kind of on the peripheral, and I knew about it then because I had been involved in the pro-life movement. And then my husband and I started blogging a couple of months ago, and there was a comment posted on one of our posts that alerted us to the situation about where Terri Schiavo is now, and so I decided to check it out and get the information and find out for myself, and what I read convinced me to get involved.

K: [BBB], what… okay, get involved, but what can bloggers do, what are bloggers resolving to try and do to have a potential effect? I mean, the court’s set to rule today on the action of removing of the feeding tube. What is hoped, I believe, is that the court will stay that action and wait until tomorrow’s hearing. What are bloggers specifically trying to do to help Terri?

BBB: We’re trying to do whatever we can. A big part of it is just getting the word out to people, especially people in Florida where she lives, and also we are asking people to write Governor Bush and ask him to use his authority to stay this starving her to death. There is actually a Florida statute that says that he can assign her a new guardian and begin an actual investigation into the case by the Division of Children and Families based on the evidence that is out there, which I’m planning to talk about. So we’re trying to do that, and we’re also trying to raise ten thousand dollars to put a full-page ad in the Saint Petersburg Times, to get the word out to people and cause them to get involved, or to at least get them to call their representative, call the governor, and there’s a few other key people in Florida that we’re trying to contact. The Saint Petersburg Times has a circulation of about 450,000. So basically, it’s get the word out.

G: So with all the legal wrangling that’s going on in this case, and you and I talked briefly about this last night, there was a spark of hope – and it gets kind of confusing, because apparently the Schindlers’, Terri’s parents’, attorney, had filed a motion to stay the removing of the feeding tube, and that motion, the hearing on that motion, is not scheduled until Wednesday, unfortunately the removal of the feeding tube is supposed to happen today at one p.m. But at that time the judge is also supposed to rule on whether the stay will be put in effect. So it’s kind of convoluted how this whole thing is working out. Do you have any more information on that?

BBB: You pretty much summed it up. It would appear to me, based on my understanding, that she will not be having any food starting at one o’clock today, until they make up their minds. And then of course depending on what happens.

G: And by that you mean "make up their minds on whether there will be a hearing tomorrow to reinstate the feeding tube."

BBB: No, the hearing is already decided that it will take place but I guess what they decide at the hearing is whether to keep out the feeding tube or put it back in.

K: I think the judge issues a mandate based on that decision today.

G: Ah.

K: And the question is, will he stay the mandate.

G: Exactly.

K: Until tomorrow. [BBB], let me play devil’s advocate for a moment, and this by no way indicates which side of this issue I come down on, but I wonder if the bloggers have discussed it. Have you discussed… has it been introduced into your discussion in the blogs, What if Terri Schiavo is one of these people that is talked about in this recent study by the Journal of Neurology… who is receptive, as her parents think, may be receiving incoming information but can’t relay any outgoing information and therefore, what if she wants to let go?

BBB: Let me answer that by summarizing the actual facts about her responsive level. She actually does respond. She tracks objects, she tries to communicate like with her voice, she blinks her eyes, she moves around. There’s videos online that show all of this…

K: Do you have websites?

BBB: Yes.

G: Yes, actually it’s terrisfight.org , is that correct?

BBB: That is correct.

K: Okay.

BBB: And also, there’s also an affidavit signed by a certified radiologist that…I’m sorry, I’m getting this mixed up. Alexander Gimon, who’s a PhD in clinical neuropsychology has studied her responsiveness level and basically said in that legal language or whatever that she is indeed responsive, she’s not comatose, she’s not in a persistent vegetative state, she sleeps at certain times, she wakes up, she responds to people around her.

G: And she’s not hooked up to machines.

BBB: No, in fact the feeding tube is on…she uses that when she needs to eat, so it’s intermittent. Even that’s intermittent. And the other thing too is that there are people that believe, people that are close to her that believe that she could swallow, and they have requested many times that she be given a swallow test, and that’s been consistently denied by Judge Greer.

G: And what’s so interesting is, is they talk a lot about too the fact that Terri might be able to eat someday on her own, given that opportunity, and if there had been any sort of remedial action taken in the last twelve years, those steps have all been blocked by her husband, Michael Schiavo.

BBB: Right.

K: Terri, we’re going to ask you to hang on just a few minutes, because there are some unanswered questions, and I’d like to know what people on the blogosphere are saying…I’m sorry, I called you ‘Terri’, you’re [BBB]. Hold on just a minute, we’re going to break for a quick look at news, weather, traffic, and a quick look at sports, and we’ll be back with more with [BBB], who is a Northern Colorado blogger who is involved in the effort to try and keep Terri Schiavo alive. Mornings with Keith and Gail, it’s 8:17.

[Commercials, followed by more broadcasting brilliance from The Voice of the Rams Rich Bircumshaw, Double-Doppler Don Day, the fast talking (but just-the-right-speed driving, yes?) Terri Landreth, and of course the man who can make the dullest sporting event sound like it deserves a deep analysis in sports history, Corbu Stathes.]



K: …It’s 8:22, Terri Shiavo today a court expected to either issue or stay a mandate to have her feeding tube removed. The woman who in Florida [who] has been in what is defined as a Vegetative State for fifteen years…

G: …although that is under debate as well.

K: …under debate in that the family is struggling in any way they can to keep the feeding tube from being removed. The family has a court hearing scheduled for tomorrow and it’s hoped the court will stay the order to remove the feeding tubes today to hear the additional evidence the family has to input tomorrow.

G: According to Florida statutes … and I kind of get hung up on this whole ‘Persistent Vegetative State’ … Florida statutes say that a Persistent Vegetative State includes the absence of voluntary action or cognitive behavior of ANY kind – an inability to communicate or interact purposefully with the environment. Now we can argue semantics on that, but her behavior does not meet the medical or statutory definition of a Persistent Vegetative State.

K: Bloggers nationwide have banded together in an effort to keep Terri Schiavo alive. [BBB] is a blogger here in Northern Colorado who is part of that effort. [BBB], what’s said on the blogosphere about the theory that the husband who has been behind the efforts to have the feeding tube removed is doing it for reasons of financial gain?

BBB: Well, actually, there’s not a whole lot said about that he might be doing it for financial gain, at least that I’ve read. What I have kind of focused on in my own reading, because I can’t read all of it, is that he… it seems like there’s evidence that he may have been an abusive husband before the collapse occurred, and that… the possibility is that the collapse Terri suffered in 1990 may have been precipitated by, may have been the result of an attack by her husband.

K: What was the cause of her injury?

BBB: That’s a little bit murky, people don’t really know. I mean, a heart attack was ruled out, a bone scan that was done by a radiologist named Dr. Walker showed numerous, a lot of different trauma on her legs, her ribs, her neck, which could only be consistent with…typically when they see that sort of bone scan they attribute it to a really bad car accident. But since she wasn’t in a car accident, the only other thing that they could come up with that makes sense with the data would be being hit with blunt objects. And the other thing is that when she came in she had a stiff neck that this, Dr. Walker says, is only been attributed to… the only other time he’s seen it, it was attributed to a strangulation attempt.

G: Here’s what’s so interesting is, regardless of the conditions that led to Terri’s present condition of being in a coma… it’s been said that perhaps she suffered from an eating disorder, and the imbalance, the chemical imbalance, potassium imbalance that resulted from that could have led in part to the stage she is in today. But they would awareded, in 1992, a jury was awarded nearly… TERRI was awarded nearly one million dollars by a malpractice jury in an out-of-court malpractice settlement. Now of these funds, less than fifty thousand dollars remains today. Financial records are sealed on exactly how this money is being spent, but court records show that Judge Greer, who has been involved in this case from the beginning, has approved the spending of Terri’s medical fund – remember, these funds were awarded specifically to ensure that Terri Schiavo would be taken care of – according to records, these funds have been used to pay for attorneys. [Michael] Schiavo’s attorney George Felos has received upwards of four hundred thousand dollars since [Michael] Schiavo hired him, and this is the same attorney who has publicly likened Terri to ‘a houseplant’.

BBB: Right.

K: (sotto voce) Oh, man. Ahck.

G: The problem is…

K: Because I’m thinking as you’re saying this "Now wait a minute, these are attorneys that have been, that have… they’re efforts have kept her alive up to this moment" …

G: No, no. No.

K: …but it doesn’t sound like it.

G: And Michael, for the past ten years, has not permitted any of these funds to be spent for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation that could have made a difference in Terri Schiavo’s present state.

K: [BBB] we’ve got to run, we appreciate talking with you this morning, this is going to be a story over the next couple of days because these court actions are going to happen today and again tomorrow. We’d like to keep in touch with you and … because that helps us keep in touch with what you’re hearing from the bloggers, okay?

BBB: Okay.

K: And Hugh Hewitt this afternoon, I should think would have something to say about this because he is very active in the blogging community, and this is probably going to really ripple around like crazy this afternoon because of this court decision at one o’clock today. More, and we’ll take your calls at eight-six-six triple-eight fifty-four forty-nine. Rich Bircumshaw has your news, meteorologist Don Day has your weather forecast, and Terri Landreth will check Northern Colorado traffic. Keep it right here, Mornings with Keith and Gail. It’s 8:27.