{"id":24065,"date":"2025-03-16T08:00:51","date_gmt":"2025-03-16T09:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=24065"},"modified":"2025-03-16T09:25:13","modified_gmt":"2025-03-16T09:25:13","slug":"his-death-was-interrupted-just-as-he-had-planned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=24065","title":{"rendered":"His Death Was Interrupted, Just as He Had Planned"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The family of Brendan Costello gathered in the hospital half-light. He had overcome so much in life, but the profound damage to his brain meant he would never again be Brendan. It was time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Brendan had spent four months enduring three surgeries and a lengthy rehab after infections further destabilized his damaged spine. He had returned to his apartment on the Upper West Side in late December to begin reclaiming the life he had put on hold \u2014 only to go into cardiac arrest three weeks later and lose consciousness forever.<\/p>\n

His younger sister, Darlene, stayed by him in the intensive care unit at Mount Sinai Morningside hospital. She made sure that his favorite music streamed nonstop from the portable speaker propped near his bed. The gravelly revelations of Tom Waits. The \u201cah um\u201d cool of Charles Mingus. The knowing chuckle of New Orleans jazz.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The music captured Brendan: the dark-humored Irish fatalism flecked with hope and wonder. And yes, he used a wheelchair, but woe to anyone who suggested this somehow defined the man.<\/p>\n

After tests confirmed no chance of regaining consciousness, a wrenching decision was made. Brendan\u2019s ventilator would be removed at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 19, five days after his collapse. He was 55.<\/p>\n

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The family of Brendan Costello gathered in the hospital half-light. He had overcome so much in life, but the profound damage to his brain meant he would never again be Brendan. It was time.Listen to this article with reporter commentaryBrendan had spent four months enduring three surgeries and a lengthy rehab after infections further destabilized his damaged spine. He had returned to his apartment on the Upper West Side in late December to begin reclaiming the life he had put on hold \u2014 only to go into cardiac arrest three weeks later and lose consciousness forever.His younger sister, Darlene, stayed by him in the intensive care unit at Mount Sinai Morningside hospital. She made sure that his favorite music streamed nonstop from the portable speaker propped near his bed. The gravelly revelations of Tom Waits. The \u201cah um\u201d cool of Charles Mingus. The knowing chuckle of New Orleans jazz.The music captured Brendan: the dark-humored Irish fatalism flecked with hope and wonder. And yes, he used a wheelchair, but woe to anyone who suggested this somehow defined the man.After tests confirmed no chance of regaining consciousness, a wrenching decision was made. Brendan\u2019s ventilator would be removed at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 19, five days after his collapse. He was 55.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24067,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24065"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24068,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24065\/revisions\/24068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}