
Hector Camacho declared brain dead. It certainly is a sad Thanksgiving for the family and friends of legendary boxer Hector “Macho” Camacho,
After being shot in Puerto Rico, while he was sitting outside a bar in a Ford Mustang, Tuesday night, there was hope that Hector Camacho could pull through “the fight of his life”
Sadly, Hector Camacho’s conditioned worsened and took a turn for the worse. After revising the initial statement that he had a chance of surviving, Dr. Ernesto Torres, the Director of the Centro Medico trauma center in San Juan. said that the bullet damaged three of the four main arteries in his neck and fractured two vertebrae. He added that if Camacho survived, he’d likely suffer brain damage.
Today, Dr. Torres said,
We have done everything we could. We have to tell the people of Puerto Rico and the entire world that Macho Camacho has died, he is brain dead.
With Hector Camacho declared brain dead, the family is wrestling with the very difficult decision as to whether or not to remove Hector from life support.
It is said that the boxer’s father wants to remove him from life support and that the boxer’s sister does not.
Maria Matias, Camacho’s mother, flew in from New York to be by her son’s side and is said to be devastated and does not know what to do.
Making the decision as to whether or not to pull the plug can be extremely difficult. Both of my grandmother’s were on life support.
Years ago, my paternal grandmother suffered a heart attack and was on life support and, she too, was declared brain dead. The doctor said there was “no activity”.
The decision was to be left to her 4 children and they could not come to an agreement; 2 were for removing life support and 2 were against it.
The person selected to be the deciding “vote”, was my cousin. At the time, she was serving her residency and is now a successful physician.
I was fairly young and remember her very clearly saying that there was no brain activity and that she was already gone. Although she sounded a bit “clinical”, we felt that she was right. My grandmother passed on before the decision made to remove the life support was carried out, however, I have seen firsthand how traumatic it can be to a family.
In Camacho’s case, there was reportedly irregular and intermittent brain activity on Wednesday, further complicating the family’s decision.
They family is awaiting the arrival of Hector Camacho’s oldest son and are expected to make their decision by Friday, although there are reports from gossip site TMZ stating that the family has already made the decision to remove him from life support.
Camacho went into cardiac arrest on Saturday, His family removed the life support and he died shortly thereafter.
RIP hector Camacho.