We have reported countless times at LifeNews about cases where patients were viewed as brain dead or too far gone. In so many cases, doctors and medical staff — even families of patients — believe that the end has been reached.
In some of these cases, patients who are truly alive are deprived of the very food and water they need to survive. That was the case with Terri Schiavo when her family desperately fought for continued nutrition and treatment for a loved one they knew to be fully alive.
In other cases, LifeNews has reported on patients who are thought to be dead and where doctors began the process of harvesting their organs — only to find out that the patient was truly alive. And in some of those cases, the patient made an amazing recovery well beyond the expectation of doctors and family members.
A case out of Michigan is another case that is a reminder to never give up hope.
In this case, a 57 year old woman was rendered nearly brain dead by a heart attack she suffered in August at her home. Doctors said she was essentially dead. Then less than four months later she’s not only alive but is made almost a complete recovery.
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Days after Michele De Leeuw’s heart attack, doctors told her husband, Karl De Leeuw that, “the woman that you know as your wife is not there anymore,” he said.
Michele De Leeuw was without oxygen for 15 minutes before Sterling Heights paramedics were able to resuscitate her, Karl De Leeuw said.
She was then rushed to St. John Macomb Hospital, at which point Karl alerted his two adult children.
At that point, Karl De Leeuw was charged with making what he called the “hardest decision of my life.”
“I took her off the ventilator. I unplugged her,” he told NBC News.
“When we pulled the plug, it was just so sad to start living with the reality that my mom is dead,” said Myles De Leeuw.
But that wasn’t the reality.
“She started breathing on her own,” Karl De Leeuw said.
Michele De Leeuw hadn’t gained consciousness though, and doctors didn’t expect her to recover so she was placed in “comfort care” for patients who are expected to pass away.
“Two days later, the doctor called me on the phone and said, ‘We’ve had an unexpected event happen,'” Karl De Leeuw said. His wife’s eyes had opened.
Two days after that, she was talking.
Today after open heart surgery, speech and physical therapy, she’s nearly fully recovered.
