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Apnea Test is Best


Rabbi Shabtai Rappaport
Apnea Test is Best
[1 minute]

This, the idea of what was later called the Apnea test, I heard myself from Rav Moshe, that once we know that the person’s spontaneous breath stopped, this is considered to be death, this I heard from Rav Moshe himself.As I said in the late 80s, after Rav Moshe was niftar, in the beginning of the 90s the acceptable test for braindeath was the Apnea test. So really the hospitals did it to determine brain death. But regardless of brain death, the Apnea test is the correct test to show that the person is dead not because his brain died, but because he cannot breathe spontaneously and a person who cannot breathe spontaneously is considered to be dead.

Of course, provided, he is dead, provided he doesn’t move he doesn’t talk to you, he lies ke’even dumam, like a stone, or Glasgow scale of coma 3, this is the definition according to Rav Moshe.

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