Woman’s family objects to Oregon law on death declaration

EUGENE, Ore. – Autumn Lee’s death certificate will state that she died on Monday, Sept. 6.

But her heart didn’t stop beating until Wednesday evening, when officials at Sacred Heart Medical Center at River-Bend in Springfield removed the 33-year-old Salem woman from life support.

Lee’s family isn’t challenging a physician’s determination that she died at 11:45 a.m. Monday about 20 hours after a rafting accident on the McKenzie River.

What the family objects to is a state law that sets forth guidelines that a doctor must follow before declaring that a person’s life has ended.

Lee’s stepfather, Don Wyant, of Salem, told the Register-Guard that the question of when the family believes she died “is the wrong question to fit our family” because they believe “it may not be a measurable, physical formula” that determines when someone dies.

The family prayed that God would heal Lee, and believes that she showed signs of life after being declared dead.

They reported Tuesday in a blog titled “Praying for Autumn asking for full restoration!” that Lee had lifted her arm and squeezed a relative’s hand, noting that that gesture “scientifically should not have happened.”

Wyant said that while the family held out hope for Lee’s recovery, the bottom line is that the family believes “it should be irrelevant to the government when our judgment of death actually occurs, when it occurs or what extraordinary efforts we might want to pursue when it comes to making decisions for our flesh and blood.”

Under Oregon state law, a doctor must use “accepted medical standards” to declare that someone has died.

Legally speaking, death officially happens when a person’s brain or their heart and lungs stop working, and a doctor determines that the condition is irreversible. That means that a person could be declared dead even if they are still on a life-support respirator.

Oregon is one of 40 U.S. states to define death in those terms.

The definitions were established in 1981 in the Uniform Determination of Death Act. A presidential commission initially proposed the act, which gained support from the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association.

Lee’s family rejects the legal definition because they believe in God’s power to resurrect the dead.

“Actually, we don’t look at any physical condition as irreversible,” Wyant said.

While it’s rare, people have lived after a doctor ruled that they had died.

Lane County chief deputy medical examiner Frank Ratti said that in his 25 years of experience, he recalls just one local case in which a person survived after being declared dead.

That person was Teresa Miltonberger, who was shot in the head when Kip Kinkel killed two students and wounded 25 others at Thurston High School in 1998.

After doctors informed Ratti’s office of Miltonberger’s death, the girl was placed on life support until her mother could arrive at a hospital to say a final goodbye. But when hospital officials removed Miltonberger from a respirator, she continued to breathe.

Ratti said the distinctive thing about Miltonberger’s case is that doctors declared her dead while dealing with “a chaotic event,” which could have led to an incorrect conclusion.

Lee’s family kept her on life support for 72 hours after the rafting accident before agreeing to begin the process of harvesting her organs, as she was a state-registered donor.

While Wyant said the family felt pressure to remove Lee’s respirator after she was declared dead, members wanted the extra time to see if their prayers for her resurrection would be answered.

Sacred Heart Medical Center officials cited patient privacy laws in declining to comment on Lee’s care, but a spokeswoman issued a statement saying that its doctors follow the law in declaring a death, and that hospital officials help coordinate organ donations to determine whether a donation is “medically appropriate and consistent with the values of the patient and their family.”

The respirator that kept Lee’s heart beating pumped oxygen to her organs, which kept them healthy until they were removed for transplant.

Wyant said the family was told that a woman in Spokane would be receiving Lee’s heart “and that different parts of Autumn would help up to 50 or more people live.”