In a victory for Michael Schiavo, a coroner who performed an autopsy on Terri Schiavo reported Wednesday that she suffered from an irreversible brain injury and would not have recovered as her parents insisted was possible. It also found no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused.
"Her brain was profoundly atrophied," Jon Thogmartin, medical examiner for Florida's Pinellas-Pasco County, told a press conference. "There was massive neuronal loss, or death. This was irreversible and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."
"The brain weighed 615 grams, roughly half of the expected weight of a human brain," he added.
Thogmartin was joined by Dr. Stephen Nelson, who described her condition as "very consistent with a persistent vegetative state," which is what Michael Schiavo and most doctors had contended was the case.
half of her brain had turned to goo. but thinkprogress remembers back to when senate majority leader bill frist (who used to be a doctor, don't forget) tried to diagnose terri by videotape. frist claimed that "[s]he certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli". however, the autopsy shows that terri's vision centers were long gone, meaning that she was blind.
the only remaining question: is frist worse at being a doctor or at being a senator? or does he suck equally at both?
