Husband Declared Dead by ER Doctor. Wife Sees Him Moving But Doctor Doesn't Believe Her
Nineteenth century writer Edgar Allan Poe made history by penning super-spooky stories such as “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” tales that turned on terrible topics such as plagues and madness.
But literature lovers know that the fears he put onto the page also inhabited his own life.
Poe was particularly afraid of being buried alive, and after hearing about the case of Buffalo, New York, resident Michael Cleveland, I can see why. On Oct. 10, 2014, Cleveland was shopping at an area supermarket when he collapsed.
Paramedics attempted CPR, and after he had been taken to DeGraff Memorial Hospital, the worst happened.
An ER doctor named Gregory Perry worked on him for over an hour, trying to restart his heart — to no avail.
Perry went out into the waiting room to tell Cleveland’s widow, Tammy, and her daughter and stepson that he had died. Yet when they went in to see the body, they witnessed something utterly shocking.
“I immediately noticed that Michael’s eyes turned to me,” Tammy explained to The Washington Post. “He was alive.”
Michael Cleveland was declared dead. His wife knew better, but nobody listened http://t.co/B3ZLQB2Hhc pic.twitter.com/YGSy71mtDv
— Canberra Times (@canberratimes) October 15, 2015
But that wasn’t the most surprising part. No, what horrified Tammy and her family the most was that Perry and the hospital staff refused to reexamine her husband, even though they begged them to do so for two-and-a-half hours.
When Niagara County Coroner Joseph V. Mantione arrived, Cleveland’s condition rattled him. “It was something I hope to never see again,” he told The Buffalo News.
He also saw that Cleveland’s eyes were open and that he was breathing. However, Perry and a nurse had assured the family that the movement of his chest was simply him expelling air.
There were other signs of life, too, such as Cleveland attempting to push the tube out of his throat with his tongue and his knees even moved on the gurney. Mantione was quick to confront Perry and his staff.
“Dead people don’t move,” he said. “He [i.e., Perry] needs to go in there and check his pulse.”
When Perry finally did so, he discovered that Cleveland was not, in fact, dead and had him transferred Buffalo General Medical Center where he died a short time later. Terry has since filed a negligence lawsuit.
“Can you imagine how Mike must have felt?” Tammy said. “His family is fighting for his life and the medical industry is telling us he’s dead.
“Can you imagine what it must have been like for him, laying there, listening to that?”
Indeed, I can’t. Cleveland may not have gotten the attention he needed in his final hours, but here’s to hoping his widow gets the justice she deserves and that this doesn’t happen to anyone else.
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