Originally shared by TioS News Organization
Saved from the Organ Harvesting table at gunpoint.
A father took a gun into hospital to stop doctors taking his son off life support – and during the three-hour stand-off the young man squeezed his hand.
The sign that he wasn’t brain dead meant he was kept alive – and he is now recovering and doing well.
His father, 59-year-old George Pickering II, was charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after marching into Tomball Regional Medical Center in Texas with a gun in January 2015.
His 27-year-old son, George III, had been declared brain dead after suffering a massive stroke in January. After doctors declared there was no more hope for him, they ordered a ‘terminal wean’ – whereby life support is slowly withdrawn to end a life. Pickering’s ex-wife and other son had agreed to the move, and the young man had already been placed on an organ donation register.
But Pickering Sr. told KPRC: ‘They were moving too fast. The hospital, the nurses, the doctors. I knew if I had three or four hours that night that I would know whether George was brain-dead.’
During the three-hour standoff, Pickering threatened hospital staff. His other son was eventually able to get the gun from him.
Pickering admitted to being drunk and aggressive but said it was only because he knew his son wasn’t ready to die. During the standoff, Pickering’s faith that his son had been misdiagnosed never wavered and after he finally got the response he wanted from his boy, he surrendered peacefully to authorities.
‘During that three hours, George squeezed my hand three or four times on command,’ he said. His son later came out of his coma and is now fully recovered. So he wasn’t brain dead after all. How & why did the Doctors mess that up?
The charges against Pickering were eventually reduced and he was released earlier this month. His son said: ‘There was a law broken, but it was broken for all the right reasons. ‘I’m here now because of it. It was love, it was love.’
It wasn’t until several weeks after the incident that Pickering’s son said he learned his family was told he was unlikely to recover from his stroke and coma. Pickering said he still has people come up to him and say, “I thought you dead.”
“It’s the duty of a parent to protect your children and that’s all he did,” said Pickering’s son. “Everything good that made me a man is because of that man sitting next to me.”
As for the criminal charges against Pickering; one charge was dismissed and the other lessened to a state jail felony. Pickering was given credit for the time he served in jail and was released this month.
“This case has always been about a father protecting his son, when his son couldn’t protect himself,” said attorney Phoebe Smith, Pickering’s defense attorney.
One of the charges has been dismissed and the other was lessened. Pickering was given credit for the time he served in jail and was released in December.
With the criminal case now over, father and son say all they want is to live peaceful lives. “The important thing is I’m alive and well, my father is home and we’re together again,” said Pickering’s son.
The only reason 27-year-old George Pickering didn’t end up on the Organ Harvesting table was his father’s standoff with police& doctors. One question still remains, where are criminal charges against the Hospital/ doctors for attempted murder/ malpractice of a patient?