A 21-year-old missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints suffered cardiac arrest and died in a Casper, Wyo., hospital three days before he was scheduled to fly home for a surgical procedure.
According to LDS Church spokeswoman Ruth Todd, Elder Thomas Milo Bennett of Window Rock, Ariz., died Saturday after being "admitted to the hospital for nausea earlier in the day."
The young missionary, Todd said, "later suffered cardiac arrest" and died.
Romero Brown, president of the Chinle Arizona Stake, confirmed Monday afternoon that Elder Bennett was scheduled to fly home Tuesday to have surgery as a result of illness he was experiencing in the mission field.
So they knew something was wrong with him, he had surgery scheduled and died. Was he out tracting or was he home resting? If he was not resting I'd say there was some blame to lay at the feet of the mission president.
I'm a physician, this makes no sense to me. If someone needs surgery urgently (i.e. the problem is severe enough that the person seeks ER care), you don't FLY the person home, you do it there.
I've had patients return sick from the missionary field (not early releases) and in some cases TSCC pays for the treatment. However, this looks like a case where perhaps he was released early on medical grounds and TSCC avoids having to pay for it because the missionary "returned home". If he had to have surgery in the field, TSCC would be stuck with the bill.
I don't see any doctor would defer an emergency heart situation to the "next day"; would you know the consequences? Hell, my wife sends the kid into emergency on weekends when kid's temperature is a little over average.... Why should any Physician take that risk?
I'm in Northern Colorado, but we do a lot of work in Wyoming, and I can tell you....there really isn't anywhere to have heart surgery in Wyoming. I think you might be right about sending him home and his parents footing the bill, because their other choice would be to fly him out to Fort Collins for surgery, and that would be expensive. RLS
PtLoma Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I'm a physician, this makes no sense to me. If > someone needs surgery urgently (i.e. the problem > is severe enough that the person seeks ER care), > you don't FLY the person home, you do it there. > > I've had patients return sick from the missionary > field (not early releases) and in some cases TSCC > pays for the treatment. However, this looks like a > case where perhaps he was released early on > medical grounds and TSCC avoids having to pay for > it because the missionary "returned home". If he > had to have surgery in the field, TSCC would be > stuck with the bill. > > Very poor medical judgement.
Wow, RfM continues to amaze me. You say you are a physician, so I assume you must be one, but I have a hard time believing that a physician would post a purely speculative post like this. You know almost NOTHING about the actual person's condition yet you are willing to render a medical opinion across the internet. Of course, the opinion puts TSCC in a bad light, so it's OK on RfM.
I hope you take more care to actually become familiar with your patient's condition before you diagnose, "Doctor."
Does your malpractice carrier know that you are making medical judgements via speculative and incomplete internet reports?
MPs delay sending missionaries home until the situation becomes critical. I could hardly walk off the plane when I came home.
Well if he is with his heavenly father, I hope his heavenly father is taking better care of him than the MP. The guy should go to prison for causing a death. If he was working for business, there would be an investigation and charges.
"three days before he was scheduled to fly home for a surgical procedure."
So he's dying and they're going to wait three days before flying him home for the necessary surgery. Aren't there hospitals in Wyoming? I wonder if he was dissed for malingering before it became obvious that he was really sick?
Obviously he told them he was sick. Why were they making him wait to fly home?
This sounds like the perfect occasion for a law suit. I hope his parents have what it takes to follow through on what was going on that caused him to die. I hope they don't ask just the MP, but also all the other missionaries that were there.
This story leaves you feeling like we're not getting the whole story. Somethings wrong with the picture here.
Where were the parents in all of this. Your kid is sick, scheduled for surgery and you're just sitting there waiting for someone to SEND him home instead of going and getting him home?
In order for him to have been to a doctor, had tests run or whatever and been scheduled for surgery, he had to have been sick for awhile. I'd have been in car driving to Wyoming long before he was ever scheduled for surgery. Yes, the kids are "adults" (as adult as a mormon can be, which isn't saying much), and they can take their own health and fate into their own hands. Except they can't. They can't think like adults. Parents are parents. They can go get their kid or insist they be sent home immediately. Except they can't. They can't think like adults.
The MP is an employee of a cult that cares nothing about people other than their ability or future ability to bring in $$$. He's just doing his job--trying to create loyal sheep who will follow the financial plan. The parents, however, are parents. They have an obligation to act like it.
The dialog in my head always comes back from my TBM programming and I just know that the mindless damage of supernatural explanations will be comming that family's way.
Can't you just hear it? Mission President (speaking to grieving family): "Well we know that god works in mysterious ways...he is in a better place now and carrying on the work among the spirit world"
That's not a quote from the article but I just know that the family is going to get that bullshit propaganda as they are feeling like s**t and wanting to disappear from the pain.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/2013 01:03PM by upsidedown.
Rhetorically speaking, I guess I'm confused, you mean the magical powers of the priesthood didn't prolong his life enough to have the life saving surgery? You mean his garments didn't sustain him, give him strength to endure a little longer? You mean he wasn't covered by the same magical powers that the Strippling warriors had? You mean the prayers of he, his parents, his companion, his district, his zone, his MP were not recognized?
Meh..stupid cult. The boy would have proly survived if he had been at home.
Exmo10101 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Rhetorically speaking, I guess I'm confused, you > mean the magical powers of the priesthood didn't > prolong his life enough to have the life saving > surgery?
Well, according to mission doctrine, he would have been protected IF HE WAS WORTHY. He must have broken a mission rule.
They should have given him a priesthood blessing, that would have saved him. What's with this waiting for surgery stuff? Silly Mormins, surgery is for people that don't have the Holy Melchizadek Priesthood. What I'll never understand is why they didn't give him a priesthood blessing, that would have saved him straight away. I even hear it can raise the dead.
I am really sorry for his family and friends. I can really understand from the article whether the cardiac arrest was related to the reasons for the surgery; and whether he was working as a missionary or in a hospital or the mission home. So until then, I won't speculate.
What a tragedy for his family and friends. My condolences.
Odell Campbell Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > So until then, I won't speculate. > > What a tragedy for his family and friends. My > condolences.
Agreed, a tragedy for his family and friends.
And, you don't need to speculate -- so many others here are doing it for you. Without any facts, whatsoever. Geesh, you'd think they were all still TBM.
I am not speculating that he is now dead. Apparenty, priesthood, prayers, and magical PJ's did not save him. It is no speculation that in general cult MP's sometimes don't handle decisions of the health and safety of the missionary in proper manner - as many have testified first hand in many other threads. These are facts are they not "Otedge"?
Speculating is not a bad thing? It could be argued that exmo's are practicing the skills of critical analysis and thinking, long dormant in their years of the morgue. Your moniker is unfamiliar. Are you a TBM?
That is a shame that a young person like that had to die and it probably could of been prevented as well. My heart goes out to the family and friends of this young man. But at the same time, what will it take to get the tscc to see that they need to take better care of their missionaries.
Knowing the MP and people that lived in Casper. The don't know the cause of the heart attack. The missionary was sent to the hospital because he said his stomach was hurting. All the missionary did was rest before past away. If you ever been to Wyoming, one there isn't the biggest hospitals there. Two, since he wasn't getting better they were going to send him home. The reason why that took so long was because air port in Casper is small. You can't expect to get a flight right away. The missionary died later because of an unexpected heart attack, somethings just happen.
Denver is a few hours to the south, world class health care and a major international airport. Sometimes Mormon culture, tradition, and society is stupid and arrogant and it kills people.
You are right that stuff just happens, life just happens. Excuse me if I am cynical when Mormons are involved, they tend to throw stupid and arrogant into the possible solution.
With a grandchild out in the mission field, this young man's death makes me tremble in my shoes more than I already have been trembling on a daily basis. I am so sorry this young man lost his life and my heart goes out to his family and loved ones.
The cult's policy of sending 18 and 19 year-olds out into the mission field is, in my opinion, a serious crime and the cult needs to be prosecuted for its policy. How can a person of this age have studied and lived enough to share his convictions of religion with others??? He cannot, and to brainwash him from diaper-age that this is what the Lard wants him to do, is so wrong and extremely lazy by the l5 in control of the cult. The l5 are preying on the enthusiasm, energy, eagerness, naivity, and trusting nature of young men and women, and I personally wish I could sue every last one of them for their complicity in this policy. May they rot in kolob!
If they did the surgery in WY he would of still been a missionary and therefore the church is responsible for paying. If they got him home and released him before surgery, the family is responsible. LDS,Inc does not want to pay medical bills. They are responsible for keeping a mall running! I hope it will be made public if the heart attack had anything to do with the up coming surgery and therefore could of been prevented if he had been home and gotten medical care in a more timely manner.
I'm an MD and have seen newly-returned missionaries who were sick. If they're seen immediately, TSCC has paid the bills. However this does seem like a dump and run maneuver: early medical release rather than TSCC having to foot the bill in the field. Either that or MP did not take his symptoms seriously. Sounds as if necessary care was delayed.