George Pickering didn’t want to lose his son. His child was put on life support after he had a stroke. George Pickering III had had many seizures in his life, but there was one that took everything away, putting him in a state where he could no longer breathe on his own.
Doctors told the father that his son was brain dead. Even though he was given the news that his son wouldn’t be normal anymore and that he was basically dead, the father didn’t want to accept it as an answer. Pickering thought that the doctors had made a mistake. He felt that his son would recover. Staff at the hospital had made the call to slowly begin removing the medications and ventilation that was keeping the boy alive. They had also called an organ donation center.
Pickering wasn’t going to back down, and when doctors wouldn’t listen to him, he pulled a gun on them so that they would pay attention. The SWAT team arrived, but the father continued to keep the gun trained on the doctors and other staff members. The father admitted that he had been drinking when he pulled the gun out.
He was put in jail for 11 months. When he got out, he was able to be with his son as the young man did recover.