Clarification on brain death

Your article on the “brain-dead” Oquawka, Ill., man who woke up and began talking after surgery for an aortic aneurysm gave the impression that the physicians had declared him brain-dead and that they were proven wrong. In fact, brain death requires that all brain activity has ceased, and your article notes that the part of his brain that controls breathing was functioning.

Hospitals have strict policies and testing procedures for determining brain death and I can assure your readers that this patient was not wrongly declared brain-dead by this hospital. He was most likely determined to be deeply comatose with little hope of recovery. Fortunately for this family, that little hope became reality.

Dr. Ronald Hirsch

Elgin