Heart transplant recipient Anthony Stokes dies in police chase, crash
The story reads like a bad sitcom. Two years ago Stokes was denied a heart transplant because of a history of medical non-compliance… i.e., he wasn’t taking his meds, so the doctors figured if he got a new heart he’d screw up the opportunity and wind up wasting the transplant. However, “civil rights” groups got involved, caused a legal ruckus and got the docs to change their ruling. So Stokes got his heart. What did he do with his new lease on life?
- Carjacked a car from a mall
- Shot at an elderly woman in a home burglary
- Led the police on a high-speed chase through populated areas
- Hit a pedestrian
- Crashed the car (which, again, was not his), nearly cutting it in half
- Died.
Not mentioned in the story: whoever *should* have received the heart that Stokes got, and instead had to wait, or perhaps died.
Stories like this make me yearn for the day – hopefully not *too* far in the future – when simple organs like the heart can be replaced not with donations, but clones. Then the issue won’t be “who is the bet fit for what we have,” but “who can pay.” Had that been the case here, the “civil rights” groups that demanded that Stokes get his heart could have simply passed a hat around and collected the funds to clone him a heart.
UPDATE: I have doubts about the current structural integrity of his organs, for those wondering if they can be harvested for further transplantation:
One good thing about this news item: it led to the funniest Twitter exchange of the day.
