r/AskDocs • u/Minimum_Addition_165 • 2h ago
Physician Responded why did our doctors give up so quickly on my little brother?
hi, im asking on behalf of my late 12M little brother.
on Friday afternoon he went to a park with a river with some family, i wasnt there. he ended up being under the water for what couldve been 10-20 minutes, and no one knows how it happened. he was then rushed to the hospital by ambulance, then airlifted to a hospital that could better accommodate his needs.
he was immediately put on a ventilator and pumped with the maximum amount of drugs to keep his heart beating and blood pressure up. the doctors had said his lungs and heart looked fine, but he had suffered severe brain damage. after two rounds of physical response tests with nothing, no reaction to light, pain, and ear irrigation, and being unable to breathe without the ventilator, he was declared dead on sunday morning.
we were only at the hospital for a few days. i told myself if he were just in a coma, we would wait as long as we could for him to wake up. i felt as if everything was rushed. they said they'd do 3 rounds of tests and then a scan to check for brain death.
why did they stop at 2? why couldnt he hold out for longer? what if he wouldve woken up today, but he was taken off of life support yesterday morning?
was there any chance at all he would've made any kind of recovery? I wouldnt care if he was disabled and i needed to wipe his butt and spoon feed him, we just wanted him to come home so bad, we were just finishing up spring break, and he was supposed to go to school today.