I've met at least two people who survived medical crises even though their doctors told their families it was time to discontinue life support and let them die.  In both cases those people went on to lead very productive and especially grateful lives for many years.  I've also talked with Karen Quinn, the widow of Peter Peelgrane, a Denver area news reporter and helicopter pilot who survived for several years after his helicopter crashed into a reservoir.  In her speeches, Karen Quinn recounts how her husband's doctors told her that he was in a coma and not expected to recover.  The doctors were of the opinion that Karen should discontinue life support and let Peter die.   Yet Peter recovered sufficiently to "awaken" from his coma and his family treasured those extra years. 

Only one of these three patients had a living will in place.  In that one instance, the living will directed that life support should be withdrawn.  The family, however, chose not to follow the living will.  Instead, they let life support continue until the organ donation that the doctors had not expected to arrive in time.  As I sat across from this fully-recovered survivor, he was clearly grateful that his family had not followed the directions of his living will.

Something about our society seems to highlight important points best when those points are tangential to a sordid tale.  The sad stories of Gary Coleman's death finally have the media exploring the limitations of living wills .  Bloggers such as attorney J. Arthur Bernal are reporting this rather matter-of-factly but with an undertone of surprise.

As you might have gathered from one or two of my previous blog posts on living wills and Do Not Resuscitate Orders, I wasn't surprised.  Based on the personal experiences of people like those I described above I try to always counsel my clients that no one will enforce your living will if the directions of your living will contradict the directions your health care agent gives the doctors.  Your health care agent is the person you name in your health care power of attorney to make medical decisions for you when you can't make those decisions yourself.  If you don't have a medical power of attorney then your agent will be a close family member or friend as dictated by laws such as Colorado's Medical Treatment Decisions Act.

This doesn't mean that living wills are useless.  They serve to instruct your health care agent about your wishes.  They give your health care agent moral authority when other loved ones argue that the health care agent is making the wrong decision.  Pulling out the living will may not stop the grief-driven protests of others that  "Dad wouldn't have wanted it that way" but the document at least gives your health care agent much-needed reassurance in this difficult time that this is indeed what Dad wanted.    A living will also gives the health care agent (and the doctors) stronger legal authority when there is a decision to follow the living will.  Especially if the decision is to end life support. 

Just remember that if the living will calls for an end to life support but your health care agent decides otherwise, there really is no mechanism to enforce your living will.  After all, doctors rarely get sued for keeping someone alive against his or her wishes.

The Colorado Bar Association has a good reference site on living wills , which are often called advance directives.  I don't like either term.  A living will is not a will and it's more about dying than living. Yet I've just described why the document doesn't contain advance directives but mere suggestions.  I know of at least three people who are glad that those suggestions weren't followed.