Full Thread: Edgar Steele
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Old January 9th, 2012 #2448
Donald E. Pauly
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Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Las Vegas
Posts: 4,130
Angry Going Crazy from Aorta Surgery

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bev View Post
But none of that means that his aortic dissection made him nutty. I've been trying to find references on Google to aortic dissections causing insanity and can find nothing. I suppose it's likely that the side effects of whatever pain relief he was given could include temporary lapses in judgement or clouding of his thinking, but my non-medical-professional understanding is that he would be back to normal within 72 hours of stopping narcotics.

I don't know - the insanity defence just doesn't make sense to me, at least not from the heart issues angle.

I take your point on the Ukrainian brides thing, but whether it's true or not, the jury has to be convinced beyond all reasonable doubt and if I had been a juror, that would have been enough to believe it was plausible and make me discount that as a motive.

Did the client from Illinois come forward? Is it known whether he exists? Taking a 1000 emails to crack it might not mean he is lying about trying to crack it, it might just mean he is a crap lawyer.
Half the people who have an aorta blow out die before reaching the hospital. Half of those die during surgery. This is for all kinds of different ruptures. The odds are far worse for ascending aortic aneurysms straight out of the heart like Steele had.

Quote:
http://www.slrctsurgery.com/Thoracic...0aneurysms.htm

Fifty percent of patients who experience a rupture of a thoracic aortic aneurysm die before reaching the hospital. Furthermore, surgical repair of a ruptured thoracic aneurysm carries a 25-50% mortality as opposed to a 5-8% mortality when such aneurysms are treated electively.
Steele did not get help right away and the blowout clotted up to some extent. This kept the blood flowing to his brain but also sent clots there which permanently killed brain cells. It took him an hour to get to the hospital by helicopter. They started operating on him in the elevator. Had the helicopter taken one more minute, he would have gone out a hero and this entire mess would not have happened.

It is possible that Steele has Marfan_syndrome in some form
Marfan_syndrome Marfan_syndrome
. This may explain his weird appearance such that he could nearly get a job in a circus freak show. I say this with no disrespect. This is a genetic defect which causes aneurysms. He had a nose aneurysm after his heart aneurysm and had to be operated on for that later. Titanium clips were implanted behind his nose to stop the bleeding. The odds that two aneurysms are accidental are miniscule.

All of the hundred or so survivor stories of brain damage that I have found are from simple heart vessel bypass operations which are done in mass production. They ALL reported brain damage and the effects are totally random in their type. Some of the effects go away in a few months but most are permanent. It just depends on what brain cells those microscopic clots wind up in. You are a new person after open heart surgery and I have read several reports of divorces from it.

My guess is that one person in a thousand survives what Steele has been thru. His case may be the ONLY one in history where a patient has become a cold blooded psychotic killer from aneurysm surgery. He needs to be on the cover of the New England Journal of Medicine instead of in one of the U.S. Marshall's mug shots. I think that he would be able to resume life in society with a little therapy. He has to learn that he can't have his wife blown up with a pipe bomb.

The supposed client from Illinois who complained about being swindled out of $4,000 (£2,400) was mentioned in a rant written by Steele in jail while awaiting sentence. I think that Steele was lying about it. It never came up at trial and was never mentioned again. He also was not licensed to practice law in Illinois, so the entire story has to be bogus. What are the chances that an Illinois victim would call an unlicensed attorney in Idaho over his lost love? This is another one of Steele's "The dog ate my homework." excuses.

Last edited by Donald E. Pauly; January 9th, 2012 at 07:53 PM. Reason: Added information on Marfan syndrome