Father says Schiavo weak but responding
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-03-29 09:55

Described by her father as weak and emaciated, Terri Schiavo clung to life Monday, as police guarded her hospice room and demonstrators prayed outside for last-minute government intervention in the case.

Supporters of prolonging the severely brain-damaged woman's life also carried their protests to the White House, while her father repeated his plea that she be kept alive by having a feeding tube reinserted.

"She's still communicating, she's still responding. She's emaciated, but she's responsive," Bob Schindler told reporters after a morning visit with his daughter, saying that she showed facial expressions when he hugged and kissed her.

In this undated photo released by the Schindler family, Terri Schiavo is shown before she suffered catastrophic brain damage. [AP]

George Felos, the attorney for husband and guardian Michael Schiavo, told reporters later that he had visited Schiavo for more than an hour Monday and said she looked "very peaceful. She looked calm."

"I saw no evidence of any bodily discomfort whatsoever," Felos said, although he added her breathing seemed "a little on the rapid side" and her eyes were sunken.

Schiavo, 41, was in her 11th day without the feeding tube. Doctors said Schiavo would probably die within a week or two when the tube was removed on March 18. She suffered catastrophic brain damage in 1990 when her heart stopped for several minutes because of a chemical imbalance.

Felos said the hospice room was decorated with flowers, had music playing and that Schiavo had a stuffed tabby cat under one arm.

He also said that the chief medical examiner for Pinellas County, Dr. John Thogmartin, had agreed to perform an autopsy. He said her husband wants definitive proof showing the extent of her brain damage. Michael Schiavo contends his wife told him years ago she would not want to be kept alive artificially under such circumstances.

An attorney for Schiavo's parents, David Gibbs III, said her family also wants an autopsy. "We would certainly support and encourage an autopsy to be done with all the unanswered questions," Gibbs said.

The parents pressed again for President Bush, Congress and the president's brother Gov. Jeb Bush to intervene to have the feeding tube reinserted. A small group of supporters protested outside the White House gates.

As Schiavo drew closer to death, extra police officers blocked the road in front of the Florida hospice, and an elementary school next door was closed so students could avoid the crowd.

About 100 protesters were on hand Monday with signs and renewed prayers. Some in the crowd mocked the police by goose-stepping like Nazis.

President Bush's aides have said they have run out of legal options. Gov. Bush said Monday that while it "made sense" to have federal courts review the case, he had to respect their decisions last week not to order the tube reinserted.

Jeb Bush later told Associated Press Television News that state lawmakers should closely examine issues of guardianship and when a feeding tube can be removed "if there's not an advance directive" such as a living will.

At least two more appeals filed by the state seeking the feeding tube's reconnection were pending, but those challenges were before a Florida appeals court that had rejected the governor's previous efforts in the case.

Schindler said he feared the consequences of morphine that has been used to relieve his daughter's pain.

"I have a great concern that they will expedite the process to kill her with an overdose of morphine because that's the procedure that happens," he said.

Felos disputed that, saying that hospice records show Schiavo was given two low doses of morphine — one on March 19 and another on March 26 — and that she was not on a morphine drip. The records show that the second dose was given after nurses noticed "light moaning and grimacing and tensing of arms," he said.

Hospice spokesman Mike Bell said federal rules kept him from discussing Schiavo specifically, but said "a fundamental part of hospice is that we would do nothing to either hasten or postpone natural death."

Comfort measures, including morphine drips, are used in consultation with a patient's guardian, physician and hospice care team, Bell said.

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