Interview with Kenneth Mullinax......

Hat tip: schmelvin

Previously I posted a link to the audio of Glenn Beck's interview with Kenneth Mullinax HERE.

But illuminaria has done a GREAT job and transcribed it for us!


Glenn: I gotta talk to Ken. Ken, you are the, the nephew…
Ken: I’m the nephew of Mae Magouirk in LaGrange, Georgia. My family lives in Alabama. They’re from Addiston, Alabama and I live in Birmingham, Alabama and we love my aunt Mae very much and we can’t believe that, uh, she is being withheld substantial nourishment…

Glenn: Ken, tell me this, tell me the situation, uh, be, because your grandma has, your grandma had, or your aunt has a, um, a living will!

Ken: Yeah, she has a living will and the living will is not being obeyed. As a matter of fact her attending physician, Doctor Stadde of LaGrange, Georgia, said in probate court that even though Mae Magourik’s living will says tha, uh, that her nourishment and fluids should only be pulled if she’s comatose or vegetative, that he feels her life is such that it should be pulled regardless.

Glenn: Oh my Gosh!

Ken: Have I fallen in to the Twilight Zone, and it’s 1937 and I’m in Nuremberg, Germany?

Glenn: I gotta tell ya, that’s exac… I, I. Ken, I’ve been saying this for five years. I cannot believe it is happening this fast. So she

Ken: And those of your listeners that are sitting by, complacent, thinking “oh, poor Terri Schindler-Schiavo.” And I was one of them last week. I said, “Oh it’s terrible, but it’s just a freak, it’s an anomaly. It couldn’t happen to us.” The next day, it happened to us. And this woman may, 81 may sound old to you Glenn, but the women in the McCloud-Magourik family live to be ancient. My aunt May Magourik is 81. Guess what, her aunt is still living. The one she was named for, Aunt May Oliver, and she is 95. May’s mother lived to be 90 and she had two aunts that were 100 and 104. Now they kill us men off early in life, but the women live to be forever. Now this woman has got 10, 15 more good years left.

Glenn: So tell me, what is, what is wrong with her. She was brought into the hospital why

Ken: All three of the children of the siblings: my mother, Aunt May Magourik, and her brother Buddy McCloud, they all have di - inherited dissected aortas.

Glenn: I don’t know what that means.

Ken: An aorta is the major artery that takes the blood out of your heart.

Glenn: Got that.

Ken: Uh, well, an, an, let’s just start from the beginning. An aneurysm is like a, a, uh hosepipe that has a big bulge in it.

Glenn: Got it.

Ken: Uh, uh, a dissection is ah, like a hosepipe that has a crack in it, but it is not cracked all the way open. And a rupture is when the crack opens all the way open, all the blood flows out of ya and you’re dead in about two minutes.

Glenn: OK.

Ken: So she has ah, ah, a dissection and the ironic thing about it is my mother, her sister, Bonnie Ruth McCloud-Mullinax, two years ago had an aortic dissection. I took her to the fifth best cardiovascular hospital in the nation, University of Alabama-Birmingham. My mother was not a candidate for surgery because it was so bad. Neither is my aunt. But guess what, world-class physicians can treat you with chemicals. My mother was in a coma for three months. I kept feeding her, I kept fluids in her. She has what’s called homeostasis which means if you keep em still enough, it will cure itself. My mother is alive…

Glenn: What is her, wait a minute, what is her quality of life…

Ken: It, it’s fabulous. Until last night. Uh, there’s a addendum to this story. My mom’s not supposed to be given… For three years she’s been cooking, driving, limited, going to church socials, everything in the world. I’m her caregiver now.

Glenn: How old is she?

Ken: She’s, uh, 74. But she is freaking out so bad about her sister, she’s not supposed, we’ve finally had to tell her Monday because we needed her to go before the probate judge to stop Beth Gaddy, uh, May Magourik’s grandchild and my cousin, from, uh, not, you know, giving her substantial nourishment. So Mom had to go. Uh, she’s, her blood pressure has been skyrocketing since that happened. Last night Mom started, uh, complaining of pain and now my mother is in the intensive care unit [begins to get emotional] at UAB hospital in Birmingham with an extension of her dissection. And it’s because she’s freaking out about her aunt, about her sister - my aunt. My mom’s at UAB right now in cardiac intensive care since 10 o’clock last night.

Glenn: Gosh, Ken. I am so sorry man, I don’t know what…

Ken: I don’t know what to do Glenn. Am I, am I having a nightmare? I’ll tell you who’s having a nightmare, Glenn Beck. The United States health care system is having a nightmare. And all of you all who are listening… It may be my aunt May Magourik in LaGrange, Georgia who is not being given substantial nourishment today, but guess what, it may just be you tomorrow because they may say, “well, you know, you’re old, you don’t need to live, or you’ve got Down’s Syndrome…” That’s what they’re saying today, but next week is it going to be, “you’re Catholic or you’re a Jew.”

Glenn: Let me ask you this Ken, let me ask you this. How did your, um, uh, how did your aunt’s uh, granddaughter get control of the situation?

Ken: How did she what?

Glenn: How did she get control. How did this happ…

Ken: Well I’ll tell you what. First of all she bluffed us. Uh, we went to the hospital in LaGrange when my aunt was first sick and Beth told my uncle, she said, “Uncle Buddy, don’t even start with me. I’ve got the medical durable power of attorney. I’m making the decisions.” And I said, “Beth, you know, we’re right here in front of your grandmother. Even though she’s on morphine, we shouldn’t talk about this. We should go out in the hall.” We went out in the hall and we explained my mother’s in uh, she’s had a great quality of life for the last two years even though she was in a coma. We can treat it without surgery. And she said, “Listen,” she said, she started crying, she said, “I’ve been praying about this and, and I’ve been praying to Jesus. Jesus has told me it’s time that grandmother went home to Jesus. She’s got glaucoma. Now she’s got a dissected aorta and her quality of life is just terrible and we just think she should just go to hospice.” And I said, “Beth, hospice is a synonym for death. We’ve got doctors who are ready to take care of her today.” She goes, “no, I’ve got the medical power of attorney and that’s it.” So we thought our hands were tied, Glenn. A week goes by. Last Thursday my uncle and my mother independently started thinking, “this is wrong.” Since I used to be on Capitol Hill as a senior staff guy in Washington, I know my way around, so they said, “Kenny, get involved see what you can find out, we want to bring May to UAB hospital.” So I call hospice, I say to Frita the hospice nurse. I said, “what are my aunt’s vital stats at. She said, “well today, her blood pressure is 160/88 with a pulse of 84.” I said, “well that’s not so bad.” I said, “my aunt’s going to make it, isn’t she.” She says, “Oh no, your aunt’s not going to make it because we have withheld nourishment per geth…Beth Gaddy since March 28th.” She said, “I’ve been off the past few days. I’m surprised your aunt’s still alive.” I said, “What!” Next time, I, she says, “call the hospice attorney.” I called Carol Todd, hospice attorney, ug, said “we’re going to be litigious.” She said, “let me check into it. Heard nothing all day, last Thursday, March 31st until 4 in the afternoon. Carol Todd called me up, “Oh my God, we made a mistake.” I said, “What are you talking about, mistake?” She said, “Beth has power of attorney, but it’s only financial, not medical durable power of attorney. And guess what? Your aunt has a living will and it says only should fluids and nourishment be withheld if she’s comatose or vegetative, she’s neither.” I said, “Guess what, Mother, get on the phone.” Mom got on the phone. She said, “start IV fluids immediately.” They said, “we can do that.” She said, “start a temporary feeding tube just in the nose to give her nourishment and get her electrolytes back up so she can start feeding herself.” They said, “We can’t do that, you’ve gotta come in and sign the papers.” So, uh, Mom stayed here because she’s a little sick. My uncle Buddy, Aunt May’s brother and I went, the three hours from our homes to LaGrange, Georgia from our homes in Alabama. Hospice attorney Carol Todd was to meet us at 10 o’clock. She didn’t show up and the hospice head nurse talked to us, “oh, she needs to die. You know, the life’s over, no quality of life.” And finally, we listened to this for about an hour and a half, and I said, “This is B.S. We want my aunt out of here now. I have world-class doctor Raed Agel of UAB’s cardiovascular unit arranging life-saver helicopter.” They kept inching us on out, Glenn, until Carol Todd the hospice attorney showed up and gave us a piece of paper. Turns out hospice had told Beth Gaddy the granddaughter that we were coming over, that she no longer had durable power of attorney and she went before the probate judge that morning and got a temporary emergency guardianship.

Glenn: Oh my gosh.

Ken: Yeah

Glenn: Oh my gosh. Ken, I’ve gotta tell you something. I, I, I, uh, want someone. I’m not and investigator, I’m not an investigative reporter. I’m not somebody who is, you know, on the bandwagon on cause after cause after cause. Even though it feels like it lately, I’m not that guy. There is somebody in our, in our listening area that can start an investigation into the connection between these courts, these attorneys, and hospice centers. These hospice centers are starting to kill people and there is something going on that isn’t right. I don’t know what it is, but there’s gotta be somebody that can get to the bottom of it. When we have these judges who are giving power of attorney when a woman has a living will. We know what she wanted! And a jur…, a judge will ta, overturn it. I gotta tell you Ken, I, uh, you sound like a credible guy but this, I feel like I’m in the same nightmare with ya. I can’t believe this story is true. I ca… I, I don’t … if this is happening again inside of my country except the wishes are known and the person is not in a persistent vegetative state, is not in a coma, if this person is being killed, quote, because she has glaucoma, and because she’s old, and it’s time to go to Jesus? I’ve woken up in a parallel universe.

Ken: Well this is the bizarre world, but the probate judge of Troup county, Georgia, in LaGrange, Georgia is Donald Boyd and guess what. In Georgia, probate judges don’t have to be attorneys. Judge Boyd is not an attorney. My second question lies, after making sure hospices don’t kill people who are not terminally ill, is that all probate judges who decide matter of life and death should graduate from law school and be a member of the Bar Association

Glenn: Oh, I gotta tell you, you can go to all the law schools, you say everybody on the Supreme Court, everybody on the 11th circuit court, everybody down in Florida, they all passed the bar and I gotta tell you man. Just because you went to school and, and passed the bar and you are an attorney and then you become a judge, doesn’t mean that you have common sense. I’m sick of these judges, man, sick to death of these judges. So let me ask you, did they put, did they, so they didn’t put the feeding tube back in. Was she, did, uh, did, how long has she been without food and water?

Ken: No, but they did have an IV in that we ordered on last Thursday and it was in her Friday, April 1st. But when the hospice person gave us this emergency decree from the probate judge, they took the IV liquids out right in front of us.

Glenn: How come your, um, your mother didn’t, um, how come she doesn’t have custody. How did the granddaughter get custody and not the sister?

Ken: Under Georgia law the closest living next of kin make all the medical decisions. And if we had known that the week Beth said she had power of attorney we would have already moved her to Georgia. When they found out that the law was on our side, they just sort of, uh, kept us going until Beth did an end run around us and got this emergency decree. The judge didn’t know any of the facts of the case, didn’t know we were even around or the closest living next of kin, but he gave it to Beth Gaddy, uh, because we would have had her here. So Monday, we had to appear before the judge, April 4th, and uh, we try to work a compromise out because the judge was not allowing evidence that a dissected aorta could be treated without surgery. We could tell that he was already going to rule in favor of Beth. Because this is the clannish little town. Everyone works for the hospital or the hospice, and it’s controlled by a very wealthy former textile mill family. It, it, uh, everything’s inbred in this little town. But we worked out a compromise that said three doctors would review her case and their decision would be binding. Well two of the doctors are from LaGrange, Georgia. One of them is our world class UAB cardiologist Raed Agel. They were supposed to do something in 24 hours. Well I heard nothing Monday, nothing Tuesday, nothing Wednesday. So Thursday I contacted the Schiavo-Schindler, Schindler uh, people, uh Schindler-Schiavo people and that’s, just in the last 24 hours, this has gotten on the World Net Daily News. Uh, I’ve actually had a call this morning from David Gibbs, the lead attorney for Terri Schindler, and he’s now volunteered his services to help us. Uh..

Glenn: But, how much, how much time does she have?

Ken: That’s why I couldn’t wait on this compromise. It was supposed to be 24 hours from Monday. I waited all the way till Thursday. But how much time does she have? I don’t know. Because she’s 81 and the worst thing about it, you know, it’s bad that she’s not getting adequate nourishment or adequate fluids, but this is a little thing that, that may not mean anything to anybody but me or my aunt. But she, she has glaucoma. She can’t produce tears. She has to take drops to keep her eyes lubricated. She hasn’t had those drops in the last two weeks. She’s blind practically now. Opening her eyes is, is a terrible pain. And they won’t give her the drops.

Glenn: All right. Ken, we’re going to follow this story. Um, I want ya to, I want you to hold on just a second because I want to make sure we have all of your information. We tried to get a hold of, the uh, the granddaughter. But, do uh, do you have another way of getting a hold of her? She’s, uh, her phone is not working.

Ken: Well it turned out that the bloggers for Terri Schiavo gave her about two or three thousand telephone calls yesterday. Oh yeah, and they called the probate judge and because the light of public knowledge is shining on these people, they’re shirking back into the corner. Maybe because of people like you, and people like the Terri Schindler folks. They were just going to let this lady not have proper nourishment because she can’t feed herself…that is just too bad. But because of y’all, maybe something will happen here. But guess what? Even when my aunt, if we get this thing done correctly and we’re able to get her and take care of her, I am not stopping here. I have just become a life advocate.

Glenn: And you know, it’s amazing. And you weren’t when Terri was dying because now you understand it’s not just about one person. Ken, we’ll stay in touch with you. Thank you very much.