Death Is Permanent - You Can Only Die Once

The media often sow seeds of confusion, doubt, and mistrust about brain death. There are too many headlines like "Brain dead Woman Kept Alive on Life Support." But now even cardiac death is getting misrepresented.

A Fox News story this week reports that "Joey Hirl suffered a heart event and died, but not for very long." "Now, five years after his death and miraculous return to life, Hirl looks at the world with new eyes." Hirl wrote a book about his experience.

Death is the "irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions" If Hirl's circulation was restored, then he was not dead. His clinicians and family might have (temporarily) "thought" that he was dead. But he never was.