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Videotape: beyond the snippets

Four hours of Schiavo say more than famous tidbits. But do they remove doubt?

By STEPHEN NOHLGREN
Published March 22, 2005

	Video links: Excerpts from the Terri Schiavo videotapes on record at the Pinellas County Courthouse: Click for first video [Small file | Broadband users] Click for second video [Small file | Broadband users] You will need the free QuickTime Player from Apple to play the audio.

The Florida Legislature saw a half-dozen video snippets of Terri Schiavo in 2003 and hastily passed an unconstitutional law that kept her alive for more than a year.

Last week, Bill Frist, majority leader of the U.S. Senate and a doctor, reviewed the video images, pronounced her conscious and decried her "starvation." Then, he and his congressional colleagues also passed a "save Terri" law.

Through it all, well-meaning people all over the country have called Schiavo's husband a murderer and compared Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge George Greer to Adolf Hitler.

Why do these video images hold such power?

For starters, the six brief scenes posted on www.terrisfight.org were chosen by her parents and their supporters to make the strongest possible case that Terri Schiavo - damaged though her brain might be - is still a conscious being.

Secondly, there is simply no denying that a few of the images are disturbing - even after years of medical testimony and court decisions have concluded she has no real consciousness and never will.

Go to the Web site and watch Schiavo arch her eyebrows after being told to open her eyes. Maybe this is a reflexive action, as some doctors say, but it's easy to see why lay people might be moved.

In late 2003, I reviewed all four hours of videotape from Terri Schiavo's court-ordered medical evaluations, not just the four minutes and 20 seconds that are posted on the "terrisfight" Web site, and wrote a story about it. The complete videos - the latest ones - are part of the court file.

With the Web site still stirring a nation, the question remains: Do these brief images represent her condition or are they a result of creative editing? Are her reactions purposeful or as unthinking as a sea anemone that contracts upon touch?

The full four-hour version was taped in 2002 under the supervision of doctors. On it, Schiavo's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, repeatedly coax their daughter to perform. It was their chance to show Judge Greer firsthand that Schiavo still had spirit. The video is poignant and, at times, painful.

Mary Schindler bends to her daughter's face to chat and coo. On two occasions, Schiavo's eyes seem to focus and her mouth seems to broaden. Could that be a smile?

When her mother plays some loud, tinkling music, Schiavo's moans grow louder while her face remains relaxed. Is she enjoying the sound?

Her eyes follow a balloon on three separate occasions, surprising even a doctor selected by her husband, Michael Schiavo.

But more often than not, the parents' and doctors' ministrations elicit no apparent reaction - at least not to someone unfamiliar with the nuances of her expressions. She mostly lies in bed with stiff limbs, loose jaw and unfocused eyes - no matter how hard her parents try.

"It's Mommy. Look this way," Mrs. Schindler urges to no avail. "Can you say, "No, no, no' like you did before? No, no, no?"

"Terri, Terri, Terri. Can you look over here, sweetheart?"

At one point, Robert Schindler gets gruff while trying to get his daughter to follow a Disney-character balloon. "Come here, Terri, no more fooling around. No more fooling around with your Dad."

He pokes her in the forehead to make sure she's awake. "No more fooling around with your Dad. Listen to me. You see the balloon? You see Mickey?"

Later, he apologizes. "I'm not going to lecture you anymore. I was scolded. No more lectures. You do as you please."

Neither Schindler's gruff admonition nor soothing apology seem to draw any reaction from his daughter.

Two doctors chosen by the Schindlers testified that the medical evaluations and video images show that she retains some level of consciousness. Two doctors picked by Michael Schiavo and one doctor appointed by Greer said her reactions are reflexive and involuntary - like a sunflower following the sun across the sky.

CAT scans show significant damage in her brain, they said.

Yes, a Web site image shows what could be a smile when her mother talks to her. But at other moments, not shown on the Web site, Schiavo makes similar expressions to no apparent stimulus. That doesn't square with smiling at Mom, some of the doctors said.

The majority of doctors, Greer and appellate judges concluded that Schiavo meets the definition of "persistent vegetative state," required under Florida law for feeding tubes or other life prolonging procedures to be removed. To meet that standard, the statutes say, people cannot exhibit any voluntary action or cognition "of any kind."

The single most dramatic moment on the video occurs when William Hammesfahr, a Clearwater neurologist picked by the Schindlers, asks Schiavo to open her eyes.

At first, her eyelids barely flutter. She slowly turns her head toward Hammesfahr, gradually opening her eyes. Then her eyebrows lift into an exaggerated arch - the kind of face a cartoonist might draw to show astonishment.

It's the only time in four hours that she makes that expression, which would appear to rule out coincidence. A lay person could easily conclude that some part of her, somewhere, responded to language and followed a command.

"Good job!" Hammesfahr exults. "Good job, young lady!"

But she never pulls it off again, or anything remotely like it. For nearly an hour, her parents and the doctor tell her to open her eyes, close her eyes, look this way, look that way, with little apparent response.

New Jersey resident Linda Lariviere said she has an idea why Schiavo only opened her eyes once. Doctors diagnosed her husband as living in a vegetative state - until she showed them videos of him "crying appropriately to music and emotionally evocative statements," she wrote to the Times in 2003. Doctors then upgraded his diagnosis to "minimally conscious," a standard that would not allow removal of a feeding tube in Florida.

Schiavo "can't perform consistently, the way a normal person would," Lariviere wrote. "The command or request has to be processed first. Maybe it makes it to completion, enabling Terri to respond, while other times it doesn't.

"Responding is real hard work for Terri and very fatiguing. Of course there would be long periods of taping with no obvious cognition going on. She is severely brain injured."

[Last modified March 22, 2005, 06:59:05]