News

The unambiguous title should be,

"10-year-old swept into storm drain will become an organ donor, dad says"

The title used kinda sounds like the boy willingly swept into the drain "to" become an organ donor.

The title makes it sound like the storm drain is some sort of organ harvesting machine and he was purposefully placed in there so his organs could be donated.

It's kinda the opposite, because for the fire brigade and emergency services the existence of organ harvesting incentives even 'lost causes' to be saved.

If you're in the sort of country where people will kill you for your organs, I don't think they're in the habit of asking permission first...

Even dumber when you realize the hospital absolutely doesn't need a little card to let you die.

Yeah, for decades I’ve heard that theory too. I’ve always thought of it as an urban myth.

Are you in the US? I wouldn’t dissuade anyone from being an organ donor, it’s obviously a great necessity and saves thousands of lives, but I’m always amazed that the bottomless skepticism of our for-profit healthcare system dries up on certain topics.

We all love to moan about greedy health insurance companies and hospital administrations putting profit above the actual health of patients and outcomes of procedures, so why is it taken for granted that, when faced with a decision to go to extraordinary lengths to save a badly injured, uninsured person, or get expensive organs for 3 or 4 insured people at the top of the recipient list, that the responsible parties will make the right decision? Hell, even without a profit motive, that can be a difficult decision that can be influenced by personal beliefs and biases.

I certainly don’t know enough about exactly how these decisions are made to have a strong opinion, but I don’t think it’s fair to characterize potentially warranted skepticism as moronic.

My father did this. He signed up for his body to be donated to science. He always told me, the minute he passes, there's a card in his wallet with a phone number. Just call them and they'll come out to pick up his body. That's it; no funeral or anything. He didn't believe in wasting money on a funeral or burial plot/coffin after he was dead. When they're done with their research, they'll return his cremated remains to us.

Sadly, I had to call that number a few months ago.

In the US, at least, I believe you cannot specifically donate to medical schools. Generally you indicate that you'd like to be used to medical research or teaching, but that can be a wide variety of things.

To be clear, I still support and advocate for this, but believe people should be informed.

That came across as if you were being facetious, but maybe I'm wrong. Tone is difficult to assess over text

We have the grate in the floor, but not the massive openings that clown monsters live in.

The one on that picture is actually okay, I've seen way bigger openings.

Never seen them outside North America.

This 3 foot pipe is also considered a storm drain. Unclear in the article if he was sucked down a street drain with unnecessarily large opening, or a drain for a creek.

To lessen debris getting stuck. No idea if it's effective.

Why don't they add a grid? That's completely unsafe