The family of a 23-year-old medical student fatally injured in the Formosa Fun Coast (八仙海岸) inferno last month has decided to donate his organs after he was declared brain dead earlier yesterday, making the young man the fourth fatality in the disaster.
Far Eastern Memorial Hospital determined the man, named Su Chia-sheng (蘇家陞), to be brain dead at about 11am yesterday, after his condition took a sudden turn for the worse on Thursday.
Su, a junior-year dental student at Taipei Medical University (TMU), sustained second and third-degree burns to 73 percent of his body in the blast and ensuing fire on June 27, which injured 491 people and has killed four so far.
Photo provided by Su Chia-sheng’s family
The 23-year-old student was intubated and attached to a life-
sustaining extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine on the day of the accident, after his heart stopped beating for 11 minutes while being rushed to Far Eastern hospital for emergency treatment.
He was removed from the ECMO equipment on July 1 after his conditions stabilized, only to lapse into unconsciousness the next day due to brain edema.
According to TMU, Su was to donate his heart, liver, pancreas, two kidneys, two corneas and a section of small intestines, which were expected to benefit eight critically ill patients.
“The reason my son chose medicine was because he wanted to dedicate himself to society. While he can no longer complete his education, he was still able to fulfill a doctor’s mission to save lives through another manner — by giving his organs to those in need,” Su’s father said.
Su’s mother said her son once told her after an anatomy lesson that he deeply revered his “cadaver teachers” and that he was willing to donate his body in support of medical education should he ever have the chance.
“Doctors considered my son’s body to be unfit for preservation due to the massive amount of burns he sustained. That was why we decided to donate his organs instead,” she said.
As of 12pm yesterday, a total of 415 victims of the blast remained hospitalized at 47 medical institutions nationwide, including 281 in intensive care units and 221 in critical condition, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s latest victim monitoring data.
In related news, Taiwan Organ Registry and Sharing Center chairman Lee Po-chang (李伯璋) yesterday said that the center has seen 13 organ donors in the past two weeks, nearly 1.5 times the number normally recorded, including four who donated their skin.
“Catastrophic events always bring out the best and kindness in people, which is why we often see an increase in the number of organ donors following a tragic accident,” Lee said.
Lee said organ donations not only afford critically ill patients a second chance at life, but also allow the spouses or relatives within three degrees of kinship to be given priority on the nation’s transplant waiting list should they ever need one.
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
‘FALLACY’: Xi’s assertions that Taiwan was given to the PRC after WWII confused right and wrong, and were contrary to the facts, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday called Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) claim that China historically has sovereignty over Taiwan “deceptive” and “contrary to the facts.” In an article published on Wednesday in the Russian state-run Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Xi said that this year not only marks 80 years since the end of World War II and the founding of the UN, but also “Taiwan’s restoration to China.” “A series of instruments with legal effect under international law, including the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration have affirmed China’s sovereignty over Taiwan,” Xi wrote. “The historical and legal fact” of these documents, as well
RSS