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This is just sad.

WEST PALM BEACH — How was 92-year-old Madeline Neumann’s death?

Painful, prolonged for days by a doctor against her wishes, with a semi-rigid breathing tube forced down her throat, injections, restraints, all contrary to legal documents in place to stop such efforts?

Or a death made more humane, more peaceful by the doctor and nursing home staff who had cared well for her for years?

Those are the two distinct takes on Madeline Neumann’s death set out Monday in a Palm Beach County courtroom.

Neumann’s granddaughter, Linda Schieble, is suing the Joseph L. Morse Geriatric Center and the board-certified doctor who cared for her, Jaimy Bensimon.

Schieble’s attorneys told jurors in opening statements that Neumann had watched the long deaths of her two daughters and husband and knew exactly how she wanted to go: naturally, with no resuscitation attempts or forced feeding. She was in an advanced stage of Alzheimer’s, but her legal documents - a living will and advanced directive drawn up years earlier - made her wishes clear.

But on Oct. 17, 1995, when she was found unresponsive in her room, Bensimon ordered by phone that 911 be called and Neumann taken to the hospital for evaluation. A paramedic placed the breathing tube in her. At one point, Neumann’s arms had to be tied down to keep her from tearing the tube out, according to the attorneys.

Neumann died at the hospital six days later, surrounded by her family.

[...]
An attorney for the Morse center countered that Neumann’s being intubated and taken to the hospital did not constitute a resuscitation effort but was appropriate treatment.

Neumann had just eaten a full meal. She was unconscious but breathing and there was a danger she could choke on her food, attorney Rachel Studley told jurors.

Neumann’s granddaughters had done the same thing as the nursing home when they cared for Neumann. When she had a seizure, they called 911.

“They did not just say, ‘Oh, she’s having a seizure, she’s lifeless, let’s leave here there.’ No, they would pick up the phone and do what the nursing home did on Oct. 17, 1995,” Studley said.

Next came the attorney for Bensimon, Jim Nosich. He emphasized that the doctor, who is board-certified in three specialties, including geriatrics, had cared well for Neumann in the three years she was at the Morse center. Bensimon had treated her for heart problems, pneumonia and the seizures, conditions that were potentially fatal.

“You never heard the family say, ‘Don’t treat my grandmother … she wants to die from pneumonia … she wants to be left alone,” Nosich said.

I’ll try to keep up with this story as it’s in court now. How sad for everyone involved, and we cannot assume guilt on any party.
It will be a hard case for any jury.