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<h6 class="headline "><span style="color:#170101;"><strong>Family man on life support asks court to rescind death certificate </strong></span></h6>
<h6><span style="color:#170101;"><strong>Yechezkel Nakar&#8217;s heart was still beating when New York-Presbyterian Hospital issued death certificate, on May31 </strong></span></h6>
<h6><span style="color:#170101;"><strong>Nakar, 68, a devout Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn, NY had previously suffered a stroke, was suffering a brain bleed at New York-Presbyterian and was put on a respirator </strong></span></h6>
<h6><span style="color:#170101;"><strong>Doctors declared Nakar brain-dead and issued a death certificate for him </strong></span></h6>
<h6><span style="color:#170101;"><strong>The hospital didn&#8217;t send the &#8216;deceased&#8217; patient to a funeral home </strong></span></h6>
<h6><span style="color:#170101;"><strong>He was transported by ambulance to Maimonides Medical Center, where the “dead” man is still on a respirator and being treated, weeks later</strong></span></h6>
<h6><span style="color:#170101;"><strong>His heart is still beating, and his family is fighting to get the document withdrawn because insurance will not cover medical bills for a dead person</strong></span></h6>
<h6><span style="color:#170101;"><strong>Nakar&#8217;s wife Sarah, has filed charges in a Brooklyn Supreme Court filing, seeking to get the death certificate rescinded</strong></span></h6>
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<div class="wp-caption-text featured"><img class="alignnone wp-image-199286" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/patient-on-life-support3.jpg" alt="patient on life support3" width="803" height="599" /></div>
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<div class="wp-caption-text featured">New York-Presbyterian Hospital issued a death certificate for a Brooklyn man whose heart was still beating, and his family is fighting to get the document withdrawn in what experts call an “unprecedented” legal battle.</div>
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<p>Yechezkel Nakar, 68, had a vascular condition and had previously suffered a stroke. He wasn’t feeling well in April and went to the emergency room at New York-Presbyterian. He was admitted and took a turn for the worse as the weeks went on, suffering a brain bleed, according to court papers.<br />
Over the objections of his devout Orthodox Jewish family, doctors declared Nakar brain-dead and on May 31 issued a death certificate for him, wife Sarah charges in a Brooklyn Supreme Court filing.<br />
But instead of sending Nakar to a funeral home, they sent him by ambulance to Maimonides Medical Center, where the “dead” man is still on a respirator and being treated weeks later, his family said.<br />
“The man is still living, and the family is distraught at the whole situation,” their lawyer, said.<br />
They want a judge to withdraw Nakar’s death certificate so they can seek insurance reimbursement for his current treatment.<br />
Insurance companies won’t pay to treat a dead man.<br />
The more serious issue here is the religious and ethical question of when a human being can be declared dead, according to the experts.<br />
Attorney Mark J. Kurzmann, who initially consulted on the case, said, “Something went wrong here, and it’s very, very unfortunate.”<br />
“To the best of my knowledge, it’s the first time it’s ever happened,” Kurzmann said of the effort to have a death certificate rescinded.<br />
Rabbi J. David Bleich, an expert in biomedical ethics who is also a professor of Jewish law at Cardozo Law School, reviewed Nakar’s case. He told the new York Post that a patient who is brain-dead but whose heart is still beating can typically die within three to 12 days, even while connected to a respirator.<br />
Another observer, GMU law professor Michael Krauss, said New York-Presbyterian’s own actions undermine their decision to issue the death certificate.<br />
“It’s extremely unusual that they declared the man dead if the family objected to the cessation of life support,” he said.<br />
Meanwhile, the patient&#8217;s wife, Sarah, who objected to taking her husband off life support for religious reasons, filed a lawsuit against the hospital late last week. She is asking the court to rescind the death certificate so she can file insurance claims for his current treatment.<br />
“The man is still living, and the family is distraught at the whole situation,” their attorney, Morton Avigdor, told the Post.<br />
Nakar is still alive, “I assure you, there is room for error in everything, including neurological criteria,” David Bleich told the post.<br />
Health care attorney Harry Brown, who consulted on Nakar’s case observes that historically, as well as under Jewish law, a person was considered dead when their heart and lungs stopped functioning.<br />
However, medical advances have raised the question of whether a brain-dead patient with a still-beating heart is legally and medically “dead,” Brown said.<br />
“The definition of death is not just a physiological one, it has cultural and religious implications as well.”<br />
The law professor added: “In 40 years of being a health-care lawyer, I’ve never heard of . . . a situation with a death certificate issued and the patient is still alive.”</p>
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Strange! Hospital issued death certificate to man whose heart was still beating – Family sues
