title: [An unconscious odyssey].
abstract: A 76-year-old ex-manager of a shipping company with preexisting pneumopathy suffered from massive pulmonary embolism after an operation in Germany and had to be mechanically ventilated. His wife requested a transportation by helicopter to the intensive care unit of a smaller hospital in the Engadin, Grisons, Switzerland, where he was later tracheotomized. Weeks later, the wife insisted on a transfer to another, even smaller hospital in the area. During that stay an emergency pericardiocentesis had to be performed. Thereafter, he was transferred to the intensive care unit of our hospital. The last journey was again by request of his wife against medical advices a flight back to his home in Germany, what he survived only for a few hours and was followed by the suicide of his wife. Why could nobody prevent or stop this insane odyssey?
authors.affiliation: Departement Innere Medizin, Kantonsspital Graubünden, Chur. walter.reinhart@ksgr.ch
authors.forename: Walter H
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Reinhart
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D017732:Air Ambulances; D003422:Critical Care; D017809:Fatal Outcome; D005594:Fracture Fixation, Intramedullary; D006620:Hip Fractures / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010351:Patient Discharge; D010360:Patient Transfer; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000628:therapy*; D011368:Professional-Family Relations; D011655:Pulmonary Embolism / Q000628:therapy*; D012128:Respiratory Distress Syndrome / Q000628:therapy*; D018454:Spouses / Q000523:psychology*; D013405:Suicide; D035502:Trust