Semi-Suicide Strategy

No offense meant, but that sounds a bit clunky. Why go to the trouble? Just call 911 right before committing suicide (some less bloody way than a gunshot) and leave a signed and witnessed organ donor card where it will be quickly found. They will then quickly take the body to the hospital anyway.

However, if you still want to use this plot item, I can think of a couple of ways to make it work.

smallthunder said:

Well, how does one "commit suicide" while 100 percent guaranteeing that one will not completely succeed, yet also 100 percent guaranteeing that one cannot be saved (even in a vegetative state)?

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aren't those conflicting requirements?

will not completely succeed at suicide, says they live.

cannot be saved, even in a vegatative state, says they die.

smallthunder said:

In other words, a vegetative state that is so clearly hopeless that no one would challenge a DNR/Living Will and insist on the character being kept on a ventilator.

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That would be pretty hard to do for political reasons. Depending on someone's religious and personal bent, they may decide to keep someone on life support, even if numerous examing doctors have deemed the person brain dead. I believe the US congress involved itself in such a case a couple years ago.

As for causing that outcome on purpose, I don't know how you could guarantee such an outcome. You could have the character hang themselves, have them botch it so they suffocate instead of having their neck break, and then have the rope break after some point (minutes later). It would be an accident, but it has the chance of causing the outcome you want. But doing it on purpose and guaranteing the outcome? I'm not sure.

greglondon said:

That would be pretty hard to do for political reasons. Depending on someone's religious and personal bent, they may decide to keep someone on life support, even if numerous examing doctors have deemed the person brain dead. I believe the US congress involved itself in such a case a couple years ago.

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That was Terri Schiavo, involving the Florida legislature, Governor Jeb Bush, and then US Congress and President Bush. I followed it somewhat, it was quite convoluted. The parents insisted she could be revived and rehabilitated in spite of medical evidence to the contrary.

IANAL, but I would think to be legally "successful" this should be placed in a liberal State where "right to die" laws are (relatively) more established.

The idea seems rather unlikely. None of the suicides I've heard of have ever been so "thoughtful" of others, whether it's wanting to donate organs, or not "traumatize" whoever found the body. Perhaps there could be someone in such a state of mind to do that, but the story would have to convince me.

smallthunder said:

C'mon, people -- let's play with this idea -- won't you?

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It's beyond my layperson's knowledge. Maybe you could find a doc who could answer some questions for you. I have no idea how you could plan it so that it was guaranteed not to kill the character but leave them precisely in a non-recoverable vegatative state.

There's a bunch of ways you could have it happen by accident. But I don't know what you would have to do to make it happen with certainty.

Drowning would preserve the organs, but it would not be a semi-death unless he was found at the right moment.

What about if he took a huge dose of someone else's Insulin. My ex bf done this with mine, but I happened to come home early, caught him, and called an ambulance. But a high dose of that can produce a coma and brain damage if not treated in time.

P.S. My ex had brain damage before he tried my Insulin anyway LOL


Ellie

Something I found out for a short story is that there can't be oxygen deprivation because it makes the organs unviable - they die off. The person can't be *dead* but 'brain dead' for whatever transplants that may be necessary. So whatever method you're able to come up with has to include that as part of the considerations.

I'm not sure of a way a person could put themselves into this 'brain death' without causing other damage and making their organs viable for transplant.

Rabe...

Here's one from my personal experience at work:

A man decided to kill himself. Because he lived alone and didn't have much family, he knew he might not be found for awhile and he didn't want that to happen, so he called 911 and said, (I'll quote him here because I'll never forget what he said) "I'm going to shoot myself. My name is ____ and I live at ____. The front door is unlocked and I'll be in the basement. Thank-you." He shot himself as soon as he hung up the phone. Unfortunately, he did die instantly but we've had plenty of people that shot themselves and didn't die. And a couple have lived in a vegetative state for a while because they didn't damage their brain stem.

Good luck.

With an Insulin overdose, you would feel all hot and sweaty, your body feels like it's nervous the whole way through, and your mind feels as though you're drunk. You'd most probably feel hungry too--this is how it feels when a diabetic has low blood-sugar anyway, this would probably be how a person without diabetes would feel if they take a lot of Insulin too.

I was joking about my ex, he was a bit of a nutter, that's why I said he had brain damage anyway.
Where they had him in hospital, he was plugged into the ECG machine and lots of checks on the electrolytes in his heart. To be honest, when he was in the hospital, they were more concerned about me because I was upset.

You would have to have taken a lot of Insulin (fast acting type) and be found quite late for the brain damage and coma to be taking effect I should imagine.

Another thing. If you could make your MC a diabetic in the story; if he didn't take his Insulin, he would end up in a coma and could suffer brain damage too. But it would take around 24 hours for the coma to take place, and the hours before that are really bad; violent spewing, craving water and not being able to hold your pee.
I forgot my injection once when I was 12 years old, it wasn't very nice, and thankfully I'd remembered (just before the coma part set-in) that I hadn't taken it--too late by then--and ended up in hospital for 2 weeks.
But if this person couldn't tell someone that they hadn't taken it, and they weren't found until the next morning; I'd say it was braindead time, even if not bodily death.

You're most welcome, Smallthunder, I'm just glad that I could help


Ellie

Brain dead

If you want to us ehis organs for transplant purposes, just have him fill out a donar card, then let him blow his brains out in the hospital waiting room.

Actually, when I was in Emergency a couple of weeks ago, the sound of sniffing/sneezing/coughing/crying was so loud that it's doubtful that anyone would have heard him blow his brains out. Oh, and to make matters worse--they actually had Jerry Springer on the television! Can you believe that? One poor little girl was quite scared of the fighting on it. So would anyone have noticed bits of brain? Doubtful.

smallthunder said:

Er, yes ... well ... as I noted earlier, the chap does not want to traumatize anybody ...

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Here's another one I forgot about:

Guy walks up to the front desk at the hospital and says, "I'm going to kill myself. I'm driving a green Ford Ranger and it's parked in the lot straight out from the doors." He walked out, climbed into his truck and shot himself in the head with a .357. The police arrived within two minutes and he was still breathing. He ended up being an organ donor.

In order for somebody to be an organ donor, they must be brain dead. Brain damaged, even a vegetative state, is not enough. The criteria that must be met is very specific. Killing the brain and leaving the organs intact would be really difficult for somebody to do to himself. There is no way to guarantee it would work. Anything he tries could result in death, brain damage, or organ damage. Even shooting himself in the head in the ER is a crapshoot, so to speak. They may not be able to keep his body alive long enough to allow for organ donation, or he might actually survive it.

It's fiction, so you can do what you want, but it's not realistic.

Variant Frequencies said:

In order for somebody to be an organ donor, they must be brain dead. Brain damaged, even a vegetative state, is not enough. The criteria that must be met is very specific. Killing the brain and leaving the organs intact would be really difficult for somebody to do to himself. There is no way to guarantee it would work. Anything he tries could result in death, brain damage, or organ damage. Even shooting himself in the head in the ER is a crapshoot, so to speak. They may not be able to keep his body alive long enough to allow for organ donation, or he might actually survive it.

It's fiction, so you can do what you want, but it's not realistic.

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We had a client do that (shoot himself in the parking lot) and by the time everything was done with law enforcement there was no option for organ donation.

Actually, that's the biggest problem with the scenario - any unintended/accidental/unexpected death goes through the ringer. The insulin one is an excellent suggestion but even that is going to make it unlikely that the person can be an organ donor because there may be a requirement - if this happens at home - that a coroner is called in. You'd be amazed at how hard it is to actually donate and in very few cases is there full donation - one or two things but I have never heard of "complete harvesting" except in the cases of expected deaths.

The other question is - how is the person going to be found if you don't call 911? Even if the person should be home and is foung to be "missing" and reported as such to the authoirties it takes a lot for them to be breaking doors in unless there is a really good reason (and even then it's rare).

The only way you could possibly stretch it is to have coincidental timing where he's just expired as someone has come to the door AND saw him collapsed. But (FWIW) you will lose readers like me because that's so unlikely and too contrived.

The other thing to take into account is that if this character is suicidal he's not going to be thinking coherently. The not wanting to traumatize people idea is nice -but it's not realistic. When people are suicidal they feel their very life is a trauma to those around them and that's why they kill themselves. They also don't want the family to worry - that's why they leave notes, make the body findable etc.

One possible way around that would be to have him more in the personality disordered realm where he is attention seeking but not really wanting to be dead, takes the OD, calls for help but the person doesn't get the message in time. By the time they do get it they call police but the guy is already dead - you might be able to have it all come together in that scenario.

Honestly, the more I think about it the more I find it an unlikely scenario.

Is there a way to intentionally induce a major brain aneurysm or stroke?