THURSDAY JANUARY 04 2001
Mother and wife in court battle over man's life
FROM JAMES BONE IN NEW YORK
A CALIFORNIA car crash victim who has been languishing in hospital for years in a “minimally conscious state” is at the centre of a landmark legal struggle between his mother, who wants to keep him alive, and his wife, who is asking to let him die.

Robert Wendland, 48, suffered severe brain damage when he rolled his pick-up truck on September 29, 1993, while making a U-turn on a motorway on-ramp. He was not wearing a seat-belt and was found to have twice the legal limit of alcohol in his blood.

The salesman was admitted to hospital in a coma, but emerged into semi-consciousness 16 months later and is now sometimes able to perform simple tasks with his left hand, such as picking up a ball or writing the letter “R”.

His wife of 22 years, Rose, the mother of the couple’s three children, had the right to ask doctors to remove her husband’s feeding tube while he was comatose, under a California law establishing the right-to-die, but she chose not to do so because she hoped that he would pull through.

When he “woke up”, however, his feeding tube repeatedly became dislodged and she decided, after the fourth incident, that her husband was trying to tell her that he wanted to be allowed to die.

As his “legal conservator”, Rose made plans in 1995 to remove the feeding tube. Somebody, however, tipped off his mother, Florence, who went to court to save her son.

Judge Bob McNatt, of the San Joaquin County Superior Court, ruled, before even hearing the mother’s witnesses, that Rose had not presented “clear and convincing evidence” that her husband would have wished to die.

“I don’t know at this point,” the judge said, “whether here today I am preserving Robert’s life or if I am sentencing him to life.”

The case set a legal precedent and is now heading for the California Supreme Court. Because of the implications for semi-conscious patients, the tug-of-war between mother and wife could end up at the US Supreme Court.

Advocates for the disabled fear that a decision allowing his wife to remove Mr Wendland’s life support would increase the possibility of relatives effectively putting down accident victims, stroke patients and people who suffer from advanced Alzheimer’s disease.

But the California Medical Association and a number of hospitals, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union, have sided with Mr Wendland’s wife, who argues that he has the right to refuse medical treatment.

Doctors say that if Mr Wendland’s feeding tube were removed, he would probably die of dehydration within 14 days. But because he can experience pain, he would have to be given painkillers — or even be put back into a coma — to save him from suffering before he died.

His mother, 78, who takes the bus to the hospital three times a week to visit him, says the second of her eight children is conscious enough to kiss her hand and can respond to basic commands.

His wife insists that he is just a shell of his former self and believes that she and her children believe they will meet him again in heaven.

In 1997, one of Mr Wendland’s doctors asked him a series of questions to which he responded by pointing or pushing bars designated “yes” or “no.”

“Do you have pain?” the doctor asked. “Yes,” Mr Wendland answered.

“Do you want more therapy?” Mr Wendland answered: “No.”

“Do you want to die?” Mr Wendland did not answer.

Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided on Times Newspapers' standard terms and conditions. To inquire about a licence to reproduce material from The Times, visit the Syndication website.
   
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