The Pickering family just celebrated a miracle… and right in time for Christmas. With doctors getting ready to turn off his “brain-dead” son’s life-support, George Pickering did the only thing he could: he brought his gun into the hospital and defended his son from the doctors… until he felt his son squeeze his hand. Knowing that his son was well, he surrendered to the police.
For his bravery, or alcohol-induced insanity, he was charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
His son, 27-year-old George III was declared brain dead after suffering a massive stroke in January. After doctors simply declared that there was no hope left for him, they ordered that life support be slowly withdrawn from him- ending his life.
Pickering Sr however had faith in his son; he said to 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 that three hours, George squeezed my hand three or four times on command,‘ he said.
“Towards the end of the standoff, which was about three hours long, he felt his son squeeze his hand,” the family’s lawyer Phoebe Smith told RT.
“At this time, the SWAT team had already opened the door to the critical care room and he had surrendered to the police, but he surrendered knowing his son had squeezed his hand,” she added. “The SWAT team had their own doctors and when they entered into the critical care room, they saw that my client’s son was not brain dead because he was making eye contact, was following their commands and they were completely amazed at this.”
He was sentenced to 10 months in prison, though the charges against him were eventually reduced and he was released earlier this month- just in time for Christmas.
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.’
Sources: Daily Mail, RT, Stream
This Article (Miracle In Time For Christmas: After Warding Off Doctors With His Gun, “Brain-Dead” Son Squeezed His Hand) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author(CoNN) and AnonHQ.com.
Knowing what I know about the constitution, we are supposed to protect our family. Deadly force can be used to protect the death of a family member. This is the best advertisement of why we need not to allow our second amendment to be tampered with or infringed upon. Ben Franklin said it best, something like, giving up your rights for a little safety, one deserves neither.
Those who would sacrifice liberty for the illusion of security deserve neither and will lose both. And yes, it was Ben Franklin. 😉
Wise and timeless words! 😉
I didn’t think a hospital could take a family member off life support without your consent. Medical power of attorney. … No?
It depends on the particular state laws. Clearly, the patient was NOT brain dead in this situation. People do not recover from brain death. In FL, brain death is covered by its own statute [382.009] No consent is required. Non-brain death life- support issues are governed by Fla Stat 765 where consent is required, either from person designated as a Health Care Surrogate for the patient or a Living Will signed by the patient indicating his wishes.
Thank you for the clarification Jane 🙂
If the patient has been proven brain dead the hospital has the right to withdraw after giving family a certain amount of notice .
First happy cry in years thanks for this story
Kind of makes you sick that this even had to occur.
What the hell. Never thought anonhq.com could post such a gun-lobby-biased article. In the case it really happened like it is written here: Sure I don’t know what I would have done in the situation of the father, but threaten people with a gun cannot be the answer, period. I’m just guessing here but a police lock down because a moron brings his gun to a hospital leads to an evacuation and other little patients do not get the treatment they need and deserve at this moment. When doctors decide to turn off the appliances for a kid, they would not do that out of the sudden, rather it would be told to the parents way in advance. A lot of time to find a lawyer and buy yourself more time if you’re sure your kid is alright. There is no, really no justification of bringing a deadly weapon to an hospital. Maybe most of the terror networks are disagreeing on that, but every normal human being should not. Sincerely, Stephan, maybe you guessed it not an American citizen but a German fellow concerned about what’s going across the Atlantic.
Good on dad for standing up
The way I see it… If there was going to be any charges filed, the should have charged the doctor with attempted murder. Heck, the ‘kid’ was making eye contact, ect.