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In no way would I class myself as a medical professional but I have done a fair bit of medical training. I think the law has changed a bit and if you try to assist somebody and fuck up you can't be sued where before you were a target for the "No Win No Fee "brigade.

Dick Moby wrote:

> If somebody doesn't have a head it's a pretty safe bet that
> he's not going to get up and start running about. But I have to
> say he is a non survivor and I'm not allowed to say he's dead.
> I would call that political correctness.


You say you are "not allowed" to use the word "dead" in that context.

Just out of interest: Who has told you (or where does it say) that you are "not allowed" to use that word? And what would the consequences be to you personally if you were to just go ahead and use the word "dead" anyway?

I'm not trying to be funny. I'm genuinely curious.

I was told on a course that only a doctor can declare somebody as dead. I presume that if the person without a head got up and started walking about and their relatives had been informed that they were dead on my say so my company and me could be sued.

I see. So as others have pointed out, it's more about liability and competence concerns than "political correctness" then.

I notice that nobody has commented on common sense. If somebody does not have a head I think most people would agree that they're not going to be running around much. Liability certainly comes into it but at the end of the day why can I not call him dead ? Very shortly we will be forced to call people with dark skins " a very dark shade of white" by the P.C. Gestapo.

How about you just chop your own head off and then get back to me and tell me you're not dead.

Milk Tray Man , my last post was not meant to be nasty.

Dick Moby wrote:

> I notice that nobody has commented on common sense. If somebody
> does not have a head I think most people would agree that
> they're not going to be running around much.
What's to comment on? It's bleedin' obvious, yet you keep repeating it over and over again. No-one is disagreeing with you on that point. For obvious reasons. !deadhorse!


> Liability certainly comes into it but at the end of the day why can I not
> call him dead ?

You answered your own question above: "I was told on a course that only a doctor can declare somebody as dead. I presume that if the person without a head got up and started walking about and their relatives had been informed that they were dead on my say so my company and me could be sued."


> Very shortly we will be forced to call people
> with dark skins " a very dark shade of white" by the P.C.
> Gestapo.

Which would of course be bonkers (although I can't see it happening). And an entirely different scenario to the liability issue you allude to, which has nowt to do with political correctness.


> Milk Tray Man , my last post was not meant to be nasty.

I didn't take it as such. Although your headless-corpse-coming-to-life analogy is starting to get a bit !boring! !boring! now Dick.

Milk Tray Man, I appreciate your comments but when somebody is dead they are dead , end of story. I was at the bedside of my my father and mother when they passed away and I didn't need a doctor to tell me. I needed the doctor's signature so I could organise things but what did they do hundreds of years ago? I say again that common sense should be allowed to prevail. As a general rule, when you stop breathing, you're not coming back. To get back to head thing, tell me how you breathe with no head ?

In a nutshell Dick:

1) Someone without a head is dead. Obviously.

2) Only a doctor is allowed to 'officially' declare someone dead. And probably with good reason. However ...

3) In the (probably highly unlikely) event of you personally having to deal with a headless corpse, I'm sure that you would be fine saying that said unfortunate person is "dead" without much fear of consequences to yourself for doing so. In a less clear cut case however (say someone out cold after a severe blow to the head), maybe not. And I suspect that it is these less obvious cases that the terminology regulations really apply to.

4) You will need to ask your employer why you need to use the word "non survivor" instead of "dead". It's no good asking us.

5) None of this has anything to do with political correctness.

There's not really much else to say about it.